ONCE UPON ATIME 
IN INDIANA 




Class 
Book. 



t52L 



r-^ 



CopyiightN^- 



CDF»«IGHr DEPOSm 



ONCE UPON A TIME 
IN INDIANA 



ONCE UPON A TIME 
IN INDIANA 

EDITED BY CHARITY DYE 



ILLUSTRATED BY 

FRANKLIN BOOTH 



.Across the world the ceaseless march of man 

Has been through smouldering fires, left by the bold. 

Who first beyond the guarded outposts ran 

And saw with wondering eyes new lands unrolled — 

'Who built the hut in which the home began. 

And roimd a camp-fire's ashes broke the mold. 

— Meredith Nicholson. 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyrighted, 1916, by the 

National Society of Colonial Dames 

OF America 

IN THE State of Indiana 







PRESS OP 
BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
(INTERS AND BOOKBINDERS 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



AUG 21 1916 

©CI.A437305 



^^ / 



TO THE BOYS AXD GIRLS 
OF INDIANA 

We who are older than you and who have 
received directly from the past a knowledge 
of the brave old days of Indiana, and know 
how easily the records of simple heroism and 
enduring courage may be lost have undertaken 
to preserve for you a few pictures of the lives 
of your and our ancestors in this state over a 
hundred years ago. 

We hope that you may sometime, if not now, 
realize that noble courage and devotion to duty 
may be shown in other ways besides in deeds of 
war and adventure, and that you may come to 
appreciate the high purpose of the brave men 
and women who have made of the wilderness 
the sunlit garden of opportunity and happi- 
ness which we enjoy. 

We earnestly charge you to remember that 
the early settlers in Indiana, under conditions 
of great material hardship, far from friends 
and all inspiring associations, still kept bright 



TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF INDIANA 

in their homes and families the standards of 
high thinking, and united with respect for 
holy things — a reverence for all that is kindly 
and gracious in home life. 

Laura Fletcher Hodges, 
E VALINE Macfarlane Holliday, 
Katharine Malott Brown, 
Mary Newcomer Walcott, 
For the National Society of Colonial Dames of 
America in the State of Indiana, 



EDITOR'S FOREWORD 

This book is intended to illuminate some 
aspects of Indiana history to which the people 
have turned their attention this year of our 
Statehood Centennial, and to create in the 
readers a desire to become better acquainted 
with the forces out of which a great common- 
wealth has emerged in a hundred years. One 
of the chief merits claimed for the book is that 
many of the chapters have been written by 
persons in different localities and with widely 
varying interests, thus making it in a measure 
representative of Indiana. 

It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge 
my indebtedness to the following persons : To 
Mr. George Cottman, Dr. Logan Esary and 
Mr. Harlow Lindley for help and advice; to 
Miss Martha S. AUerdice for the chapter, 
"French Missionaries and Explorers" ; to Miss 
Grace E. Davis for the chapters, "The Legend 
of an Old Indian Orchard" and "What Fran- 
cis Vigo Did"; to Miss Martha E. Howes for 



editor's foreword 



'*What Was to Be Indiana"; to Mrs. Marcia 
Wilson for "The Constitutional Elm"; to Mr. 
William Allen Wood for "George Rogers 
Clark"; to Mr. Albert Kleber for "Pierre 
Gibault," and to Dr. Ernest V. Shockley for 
the "Map of Indiana in 1820." 

An especial debt is due to Miss Frances 
Morrison for help and for the verses written by 
her for this book. All articles not otherwise 
accredited were written by the editor. 

Charity Dye. 
Indianapolis, June 1, 1916. 



CONTENTS 
Chapter Page 

Introductory: What Was to Be In- 
diana — Nature's Story ... 1 

I French Missionaries and Explorers 9 
II The Mound Builders and the In- 
dians 25 

III The Legend of an Old Indian Or- 
chard 45 

rV Early Trails and Traces ... 55 

V George Rogers Clark, Hero of the 

Northwest Territory ... 71 

VI How Clark Was Aided by Pierre 

Gibault, Priest-Patriot ... 87 
VII What Francis Vigo Did for the 

Northwest Territory ... 97 

VIII The Constitutional Elm, Corydon . 113 

IX The Pioneers of Indiana . . . 127 

X What Brought Abel Lomax and His 

Servants to Indiana . . . .155 
XI New Harmony and Its Two Social 

Experiments 167 

XII Choosing the Site for the Perma- 
nent Capital — Indianapolis . . 191 



INVOCATION 

Frances Morrison 

Little links with Yesterday, 
Tales of Long Ago, 
You are humble in your way, 
But small beginnings grow. 
Indiana must give heed 
To her treasure store ; 
You may be the magic key 
To a long-locked door. 
Yours may be a birthday gift 
Greater than you know : 
Give her back her very own. 
Tales of Long Ago ! 
Give her back her Yesterdays, 
Tales of Long Ago ! 



WHAT WAS TO BE INDIANA 
NATURE'S STORY 




ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 



ONCE UPON A TIME 
IN INDIANA 

INTRODUCTORY 

Childrex^ there is a very wonderful old 
story-book ; it is so large and so great that even 
though one lived a thousand years, he could not 
read its every page. It contains marvelous 
pictures and its stories are told by the trees 
and flowers, the animals and birds, the rocks 
and hills and meadows and even by the black 
glossy coal that lies buried under the soil. 

You must have guessed by this time that we 
are speaking of the Book of Xature which tells 
us something of what we now call Indiana, 
when it was a part of the vast region north of 
the Ohio River at a time when there was 
nothing to be seen except sea and sky; there 
was no sign of life anwhere. After a very long 
time strange animals that we call fishes, though 

1 



g ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

they were very unlike the fish that to-day dart 
about in the calm waters of the White River 
or swim so gracefully in the splashy current 
of the Wabash, came to make their home in 
the deep sea under which our future Indiana 
lay. During the long ages when this soil on 
which we live was making ready for us, count- 
less numbers of these animals lived and died, 
leaving their bones upon the floor of the sea. 
You will now have to shut your eyes and try 
to think of the long centuries of time that 
passed until Indiana "drenched and dripping" 
appeared beneath a friendly sky. . . • 

Then the sun and the wind, the rain and the 
soil worked together and soon clothed the land 
in living green. Vegetation grew to a great 
height in the marshes; the wind moaned and 
sighed through the branches of the splendid 
trees, but no bird song was heard in them. No 
wild life could live there save the snakes and 
frogs and insects such as find their food in the 
marshes and foggy fenland. Again centuries 
passed and again the sea swept over the land, 
burying the monarch trees beneath its waters 
and leaving no signs of life anywhere. This 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA S 

happened many times, during which wonderful 
changes were taking place. The shrubs, the 
trees, the ferns and all vegetation were being 
changed into coal — ^the very coal that now keeps 
us snug and warm against the winter's blast. 
Perhaps you know the story of The Petrified 
FerUj, and maybe you, yourself, have found 
the imprint of some dainty plant upon the 
coal telhng its own story of the far-off time. 
After Indiana had risen from the sea for the 
last time and strange animals and wonderful 
plants were everywhere to be seen, a more mar- 
velous thing than had yet happened, was to 
take place. The warm climate in which these 
plants and animals lived gradually became 
colder and colder till a great ice river from the 
North covered the state as the sea had covered 
it before. This glacier reached almost to the 
Ohio River ; it scooped out valleys, leveled hills, 
ground stones to powder, tore up trees by the 
roots and carried in its mighty ice arms giant 
boulders, which to-day bear witness of its con- 
quering course ; whenever you see one of these 
granite boulders made smooth by the grinding 
of the ice mountain or river, you can be sure 



4 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the glacier carried it there. The animals and 
plants that flourished here at the time the great 
ice river came down were destroyed or driven 
southward ahead of it. . . . 

Luckily the mood of Nature changed or 
there would be no Indiana Centennial to cele- 
brate in 1916. Balmy winds began to blow 
and the struggle between the ice and the sun 
commenced and continued till the ice melted 
away, leaving many scars that told how the 
ponderous glacier had furrowed the face of 
our state. The animals driven away by the 
ice gradually returned and the seeds of plants 
were carried back by the birds and the winds, 
and in time Indiana came to look as the pi- 
oneers found it many years later, with its fer- 
tile valleys, dense forests and winding streams. 
OBeautiful birds rejoiced in the trees, fish swam 
in the streams and other animals, such as the 
wild horse, the sloth, the wild hog and the 
beaver, lived here. It is said that the deer, the 
bear, the bison, besides many of our smaller 
animals, such as the fox, the lynx and the wild 
cat, came later. Among the animals that lived 
here in an earlier time, we must not forget the 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 5 

mammoth and the mastodon. These great 
creatures looked something like the elephant 
though they were much larger. The mam- 
moth was clothed so that he could live in a cold 
country, for he was covered with wool and long 
coarse hair. Many people believe that these 
monster animals lost their lives by miring in 
the muddy swamp lands, for their skeletons 
have been dug up on many farms in Indiana. 

And thus it is that we read the stories that 
Nature has told us of the beautiful Indiana, 
in which we live to-day, before it was known 
to man. 



FRENCH MISSIONARIES AND 
EXPLORERS 




CA]&££ LA SALLE, THE FREXCH EXFLOBDE! 

If you have ever canoed silently down an 
Indiana stream, and listened to the mysterious 
forest voices on either side, you know what it 
means to forget the present, and to find your- 
self suddenly in the past of over two centuries 
ago, when Indiana had neither name nor boun- 
dary, but was only a part of the great stretch 
of territory claimed by France and as yet un- 
explored by her. 

Through such a thickly wooded region as 
may still be found in Indiana, along just such 

9 



10 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

a stream as you yourself have descended, came 
La Salle, the French explorer, in the year 
1669. He and his little company of fourteen 
men filled four frail canoes, which had brought 
them safely all the way from Montreal and 
were now turned toward the Ohio. It was a 
new and strange adventure for the gay young 
Frenchman, but an adventure which suited his 
courage and steadfast purpose. 

Three years before. La Salle had come to 
Montreal from his native town, Rouen. In 
this town on the River Seine, he had spent his 
boyhood and had dreamed of becoming an ex- 
plorer and of some day discovering for his 
country a new passage to the South Sea. His 
ambition never wavered, and when, in 1666, 
he came to Canada, to join an older brother, 
his thoughts were upon the unexplored regions 
of the new country, whose riches he meant to 
discover and develop. 

His first step was to master as many of the 
Indian languages as possible. Since he was 
to travel through the red men^s country, he 
wished to make them his friends and guides. 
Indian visitors to Montreal did become his 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 11 

friends, and told him stories of their forests 
and streams. Some of them told him of a great 
river called the Ohio, which they said flowed 
into the sea. La Salle thought that the sea 
must be the Gulf of California, and that the 
Ohio was the long dreamed of passage to 
China. He determined to begin his explora- 
tions at once, and as soon as he gained the con- 
sent of the Canadian governor, he fitted out 
his little expedition. Two Jesuits, priests who 
had been planning the same journey, joined 
their company of seven men to La Salle's. One 
of the priests, Galinee, kept a journal in which 
we may read such passages as this: "After 
paddling or cariying the canoes all day, you 
find mother earth ready to receive your wearied 
body. If the weather is fair, you make a fire 
and lie down to sleep without further trouble ; 
but if it rains, you must peel bark from the 
trees, and make a shed by laying it on a frame 
of sticks. As for your food, it is enough to 
make you bum all the cookery books that were 
ever written. The ordinary food is Indian 
corn — turkey wheat, as they call it in France ; 
it is crushed between two stones and boiled, sea- 



12 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

soned with meat or Bsh, when you can get 
them." 

After a month's journey, the explorers en- 
tered Lake Ontario, which seemed to them 
"hke a great sea, with no land beyond it." 
They left the lake soon and traveled inland 
till they reached one of the Seneca Indian vil- 
lages. They spent a month with this tribe, 
hoping to get guides who would direct them 
to the Ohio. They could not win the confi- 
dence of the Indians, however, and so returned 
to Lake Ontario. In their canoes they fol- 
lowed the southern coast of the lake to its west- 
ernmost point, where they found a Sioux vil- 
lage, Otinawatana. Here they ransomed an 
Indian prisoner, who promised in return, to 
guide them to the Ohio. Here, too, they met 
two young Frenchmen who were returning 
from an exploring expedition to the copper 
mines of Lake Superior. One of them, Louis 
Joliet, was four years later to discover and ex- 
plore the upper Mississippi. He told La Salle 
and the priests of the numerous Indian tribes 
near Lake Superior, and of their savage and 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 13 

destitute lives. His story so influenced the 
priests that they resolved to change their course 
and go as missionaries to the Lake Superior 
tribes. They tried to persuade La Salle to 
join them; but he was bent upon discovery, 
and taking the Indian guide, he and his men 
turned southward. Galinee's journal no longer 
followed the adventures of La Salle, and we 
know few of the details of his journey from 
this point on. 

We do know, however, that he left the lake 
again, and portaged to one of the branches of 
the Ohio, and descended this stream to the 
Ohio itself. Once on the waters of this great 
river. La Salle felt that his goal was in sight. 
The canoes were directed toward the mouth of 
the river, and were soon following what is now 
the southern boundary of Indiana. 

When La Salle reached the Falls of the 
Ohio, where Louisville is now situated, his men, 
terrified at the thought of the distance over 
which they had already come, and of the dis- 
tance which must still stretch between them 
and the fiulf of California, refused to go 



14< ONXE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

farther. Unable to continue by himself, La 
Salle was forced to give up his dream and to 
retm^n to ^Montreal. 

He could not forget the wonderful new 
lands, which he thought far siu^passed Canada 
in fertility and climate. He lonafed to add them 
to the dominion of France. AMien the voyage 
of 3Iarquette and Joliet revealed the fact that 
the Ohio was the branch of a greater river 
which flowed south instead of west. La Salle 
made new plans. He determined to follow 
the new river to its mouth, to build a fort there, 
and to control the trade of its great basin, in 
the name of France. He inspired Frontenac, 
the governor of Canada, with his ovm enthusi- 
asm, and even gained a grant from the king 
which entitled him to the conmiand of a foii; 
which he was to build on Lake Ontario, as a 
guard against the advance of the Iroquois. 

It was not until December third of the year 
1680 that La Salle again reached the region 
which is now Indiana. With eight canoes and 
thirty-three men, he entered the St. Joseph 
River from Lake 3Iicliigan. One of the com- 
pany was an Italian officer, the heroic De 



ONCE UPON :a: time in Indiana is 

Tonty, who had lost a hand in the Sicilian wars. 
La Salle, writing about him, says: "Perhaps 
you would not have thought him capable of do- 
ing things for which a strong constitution, an 
acquaintance with the country, and the use of 
both hands seemed absolutely necessary. Nev- 
ertheless, his energy and address made him 
equal to anything." The story of Tonty's 
loyalty to La Salle, and of his heroic life is too 
long to tell here, but you may read of his won- 
derful adventures in Parkman's La Salle and 
the Discovery of the Great West. There, too, 
you may read of Louis Hennepin, the Fran- 
ciscan friar, who was another of La Salle's 
companions upon this expedition. Hennepin, 
too, had been an adventurer from boyhood. 
He tells of his training at a convent at Artois, 
and of how he loved to be sent to the fishing 
station at Calais to beg alms. "I hid myself," 
he says, "behind the tavern doors, while the 
sailors were telling of their voyages. The 
tobacco smoke made me sick at the stomach, 
nevertheless I listened very attentively to all 
they said about their adventures at sea, and 
their travels in distant countries. I could have 



16 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

passed whole days and nights in this way with- 
out eating." This was the boy who in after 
years became the cheery, courageous missionary 
of La Salle's expedition. There were two other 
friars in the party; one of them, Father Ga- 
briel, was sixty years old. 

When the party reached the portage place, 
where the city of South Bend is now situated, 
the Indian guide who was to show them the 
path between the St. Joseph and the head 
stream of the Illinois was not with the party. 
He had gone off in search of provisions. La 
Salle was eager to push on, and too impatient 
to wait for the guide's return, left the others 
and went in search of the path himself. He 
lost his way in the Indiana woods, and was 
separated from his companions all night. He 
slept in a deserted Indian bed of grass, and in 
the morning found his way back to his anxious 
company. With the aid of the guide they con- 
tinued their journey. The five-mile portage 
path — the Kankakee River — the Illinois — the 
Mississippi — these were the stages of La Salle's 
voyage in 1680. Though his plans for con- 
quest and for the glory of France met defeat 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 17 

again and again, he and his company opened 
the trail for others. They were the explorers 
and discoverers of that great unlaiown territory 
south of the Great Lakes. 

The two voyages of La Salle were ten years 
apart, and during that time other white men 
came into the country south of the Lakes. The 
most famous of these were Marquette and 
Joliet, who discovered the upper Mississippi, 
coming by way of Lake Michigan and the 
Illinois River. 

Marquette was a priest; Joliet was a fur- 
trader and explorer. Both had received their 
early training in the society of the Jesuits. 
Joliet's love of adventure and his trading in- 
stinct soon led him away from the priesthood. 
Marquette, on the other hand, resolved to be a 
missionary among the savages of the New 
World. Myron Reed says this of him : "Mar- 
quette was called, not like David, from keeping 
sheep to be chieftain, prince, and king, but to 
go down among wolves, to go armed with a 
crucifix to men who despised mercy. He knew 
the task before him. The experiment of carry- 
ing; the gospel to the savages of Canada had 



18 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

already been tried. Nine of the twenty-two 
missionaries had met death by torture." 

Marquette's destiny was a happy one in com- 
parison with the fate of his forerunners. 
Though he was to spend only nine years in the 
New World, he was to win, during that short 
time, the aiFection and devotion of tribe after 
tribe of Indians. In the very last month of 
his life, in spite of the fatal disease which was 
sapping his strength, he was to achieve one of 
his cherished ambitions — the founding of a 
mission in the large Indian town, Kaskaslda. 
He was to die peacefully, in the company of 
two devoted comrades. He was to be mourned 
by the Indians, who regarded his grave as 
sacred, and thought that a handful of earth 
plucked from it had healing power. 

Marquette's life among the savages began 
in 1673, when we find him at the mission of 
St. Esprit, at the westernmost point of Lake 
Superior. Driven from this mission by the 
Sioux, he goes to Michilimackinac, where he 
builds and guards a mission house and chapel, 
and begins work again. Word is brought to 
him by strange Indians of a g;reat river, and 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 19 

of savages along its shores, who have never 
seen a priest. Marquette longs to go among 
them. One day a trader, Joliet by name, ap- 
pears at the mission, bearing a message from 
the governor. The message orders Marquette 
to join Joliet's exploring expedition to the 
great river. Pere JNIarquette believes this to 
be an answer to his prayer. 

In two birch canoes, and accompanied by five 
men, they begin the long voyage down Lake 
Michigan to Green Eay, along the Fox River 
to Lake Winnebago, across a portage path of 
a mile and a half to the Wisconsin River, and 
on to the Mississippi. Parkman tells of the 
journey down the Mississippi; how the buf- 
falo appeared on the great prairies along the 
river ; how they passed Indian Manitous, hide- 
ously painted on tall rocks projecting from 
the river banks; how they stopped now and 
then among Indian tribes, that Marquette 
might teach them, and baptize the babies ; how 
they made at last a strange discovery, and 
turned back to bear the news that the Missis- 
sippi flowed not west, as they had believed, 
but south. 



20 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Marquette's thoughts, however, were not on 
the voyage of discovery, but with the savages 
along the shores of the great river and its 
branches. The largest Indian village they had 
found was on the Illinois River, and he re- 
solved to found a mission here. After his re- 
turn with Joliet to Green Bay, he was not 
content until he was again bound southward. 
He was ill and unable to travel, but he held 
steadfastly to his purpose till he reached the 
village. He founded his mission, called to- 
gether a great assemblage of Indians, and in- 
structed them in the new religion. When he 
left them, to return to Michilimackinac he was 
escorted as far as Lake Michigan by a great 
crowd of Indians. He died before he could 
reach the home mission, and was buried where 
the town of Marquette afterward stood. "In 
the winter of 1676," says Parkman, "a party 
of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake 
Michigan; and when, in the following spring, 
they prepared to return home, they bethought 
them, in accordance with an Indian custom, 
of taking with them the bones of Marquette, 
who had been their instructor at the mission of 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA ^1 



St. Esprit. They repaired to the spot, found 
the grave, opened it, washed and dried the 
bones and placed them carefully in a box of 
birch bark. Then, in a procession of thirty 
canoes, they bore it, singing their funeral songs, 
to St. Ignace of JMichilimackinac. As they 
approached, priests, Indians and traders all 
thronged to the shore. The relics of Mar- 
quette were received with solemn ceremony^ 
and buried beneath the floor of the little chapel 
of the mission." 

After the voyages of Marquette and Henne- 
pin, other priests followed the streams of In- 
diana and Illinois. Many of them grew old 
and died at their mission posts among the In- 
dians. For a long time they were the only 
civilizing force. The missionary was not only 
priest, but doctor, nurse and teacher. In re- 
turn, many of them received only torture and 
death at the hands of the Indians, but we have 
no record of a priest who did not meet death, 
and greater tests than death, heroically. 



THE MOUND BUILDERS AND 
THE INDIANS 




TECUMSEH 



The first people who lived here, the Mound 
Builders, are shrouded in mystery as to who 
they were, where they came from, how they 
lived, where they went, what language they 
spoke and what they believed in. 

Should you go hunting or fishing in the 
southern part of our state along the Ohio, or 
westward to the Wabash or perhaps up the 
White River and along some of the little creeks 
that flow into it, you would wonder at the 
beauty of the scenery and would, no doubt, 

25 



26 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

climb the high river bluffs and look over the 
fertile valley that stretches away as far as the 
eye can see. While you stand there it may be 
true that the ground under your feet was not 
placed there by nature, but by the hand of man, 
by the Mound Builders, the first inhabitants of 
our soil. The great mounds left by them are 
found all over Indiana, but are more numer- 
ous in the southern part, along the streams. 
These mounds are now so overgrown with trees 
and so worn down with rain that one might 
never guess what they are. The farmers, too, 
have cut them down in planting crops on them. 
All we know of them we have to reason out 
from the only evidence left behind them, that 
is in their works. Since in many mounds the 
implements left are made of the same kind of 
stone found no farther north than Tennessee, 
many persons believe that the Mound Builders 
must have passed through that region. It is 
believed, too, that they must have worshiped 
the sun, because so many of their mounds faced 
the east, the land of the rising sun. Weapons 
of warfare bear witness that, though they were 
an agricultural people, they practised the arts 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 9.% 

of war or defense. That they were domestic is 
proved in the household utensils found in their 
mounds. 

Most of the mounds are built of earth, but 
there are some made of stone. The general 
shape of the mounds was that of a cone, but 
some were built in the shape of animals, such 
as the elephant mound in Ohio and the squirrel 
mound in Indiana. 

The placing of the mounds along streams 
and on high points indicates that they loved 
the water in going from place to place and they 
were thought to be great canoe men, and that 
they wished to be where they could look out for 
the approach of an enemy. From the numbers 
of these mounds and the remains found in them, 
we are led to believe that they were a numer- 
ous people living here ages ago and looking 
out upon the beautiful Indiana country with 
much the same affection that we do to-day, and 
spending their lives in a simple beautiful faith 
that went out with them when they were over- 
come by the warlike Indians. 

As the Mound Builders are remembered by 
the earthen works they left behind them, the 



28 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Indian has for his memorials the imperishable 
names which he gave to the streams and places 
over our state. Long after the passing of the 
last person who has any recollection of the In- 
dian within our borders, these musical names 
will be spoken and their charm will carry its 
influence whether consciously or not. The 
names JNIiami, Ohio, Kankakee, JMississinewa, 
Meshingomeshia, Ontario, Wabash, Wawasee, 
Winona and many others will ever take us 
back to the children of the forest who roamed 
over our state as their own hunting-ground 
and their own home, not dreaming that there 
would ever be a time when they would have to 
leave it unwillingly. 

The Indian character in its savage state had 
many of the lasting traits which we admire. 
Bravery had the highest place in their code of 
honor and they endured torture and death with- 
out a murmur. They kept their promises, 
obeyed their chiefs, had faith in the Great 
Spirit, who entered into their ceremonies of 
the peace pipe and the council fire. They loved 
freedom and hated restraint. They had in 
many cases a high sense of justice. Their very 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 29 

cruelties showed that they themselves would 
go through the same if it came to them. 

They trained their young braves to bear 
hardships ; the long fast and the vigil developed 
a self-control and self-reliance, which gave 
them a strength that was marvelous. They 
adopted the orphan children of their tribes and 
loved their kind. 

The Indian that the pioneers of Indiana 
found when they came was largely what the 
white man had made him. The pioneers found 
no outstretched Indian hands nor greeting of 
"Welcome, Englislimen," such as had been 
given to settlers in the early history of our 
country. The Indian looked upon the pioneer 
as an invader upon his rights and was suspi- 
cious of him from the start. The treaties made 
with the Indians upon our soil had been to get 
from him his land for some money and many 
trinkets and an exaction from him to leave the 
territory at a certain time and remove to the 
far West. The white man had introduced him 
to firearms and whisky which the Indian used 
to his hurt. In the light of these facts, can it 



30 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

be wondered that he did what his savage na- 
ture could conceive to keep for himself and his 
posterity what was his by a right he must vin- 
dicate ? 

In spite of the memories of the Pigeon Roost 
massacre, of the murders of the white women 
and children, of the midnight attack and the 
burning of so many homes, of the ever-present 
danger from the tomahawk lurking behind al- 
most every tree along the roadside, and of the 
sickening treatment of the dead and the pris- 
oners in battle, there is still an awful pathos 
in the Indian death struggle for his land, his 
home and his country as he understood it. 

There are many examples of Indian faith- 
fulness to the white man, and many Indians 
proved trusty guides and helpers in the wars. 
Some of them remained on Indiana soil on the 
white man's terms after the great removals 
west took place. These were almost always 
attended by sorrow. We read how they were 
hurried off and their homes destroyed; of 
the sullen silence of the braves and the suf- 
fering of the aged women and children, many 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 31 

of whom sickened and died on the way. These 
accounts do not make us proud; but rather 
ashamed. 

The Miamis and the Delaware were the main 
tribes occupying Indiana, and your histories 
will tell you of the branch tribes and where 
they lived. The JNIiamis claim to have come 
first and say they do not know of a time when 
they were not here. 

Two of the most noted Indians having to do 
with the history of Indiana are the Little Tur- 
tle, the Miami chief, and Tecumseh, the Shaw- 
nee chief. The name of the first is inseparably 
linked with that of Anthony Wayne and of the 
second with the name of William Henry Har- 
rison. 

Little Turtle's estimate of Anthony Wayne 
at the council on the night before the battle of 
Fallen Timbers, in 1794, tells us much of both 
men. Little Turtle strongly advised accept- 
ance of the treaty offered by Wayne, and said : 
"We have beaten the enemy twice under sep- 
arate commanders ; we can not expect the same 
good fortune always to attend us. The Amer- 
icans are now led by a chief who never sleeps ; 



32 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the night and the day are ahke to him, and 
during all the time that he has been marching 
on our villages, notwithstanding the watch- 
fulness of our young men, we have never been 
able to surprise him. Think well of it. There 
is something whispers to me, 'It would be pru- 
dent to listen to his offer of peace.' " The next 
day the Indians met the defeat that Little 
Turtle feared. After this victory Wayne is 
referred to as "The Lion-hearted Wayne," who 
opened "the glorious gate of the Ohio to the 
tide of civilization so long shut oif from its 
hills and valleys." Wayne's victories were the 
natural outcome of his character; he was one 
of the most perfect drill-masters in the Revolu- 
tion and never spared time nor labor to make 
himself and his men ready for any emergency 
that might arise. He built forts, had roads 
made, covered up his plans from the enemy, 
and above all, communicated his own intrepid 
spirit to the men under him. 

The Indian defeat at Fallen Timbers led 
directly to the treaty between Little Turtle 
and Anthony Wayne at Greenville, in North- 
west Ohio, the next year, in 1795. Did you 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 33 

ever think what a solemn thing an Indian 
treaty or council was, and of the ceremonies 
and the time it took to complete it? This 
treaty at Greenville was one of that kind, and 
it lasted from the middle of June till the first 
week in August. 

On June sixteenth, Anthony Wayne first 
passed round the calumet to the chiefs who 
were then there, saying, "I have this day 
kindled the council fire of the United States. 
. . . I now deliver to each tribe a pres- 
ent of a string of white wampum to serve as a 
record of the friendship that is this day com- 
menced between us." As the distance was long 
from their homes on the Wabash and the Mi- 
ami, and the Great Lakes, the tribes continued 
to assemble till eleven hundred warriors, repre- 
senting nine nations with their chiefs, had gath- 
ered. Among them were their great men — ■ 
scions of many a proud and noted tribe — many 
who had fought the white man in battles before 
the one at Fallen Timbers. It was over a 
month before Wayne addressed the full coun- 
cil, which he did on the twenty-first of July. 
The next day the Little Turtle spoke. As 



34. ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the vanquished warrior stepped before the au- 
dience with great dignity, we can easily imag- 
ine his feeling as he looked into their faces. 
It was a picturesque sight ; on one hand there 
were hundreds of warriors, hardened by fights, 
all now eager to hear what their valiant chief 
would say. On the other hand there were before 
him the victorious chief, General Anthony 
Wayne, and the young aid, William Henry 
Harrison, who was to be the hero of Tippe- 
canoe in 1811 and later to sit in "Washing- 
ton's chair," besides a mixed company of of- 
ficers, interpreters and spies who were there 
to aid in carrying on the business of the treaty. 
Little Turtle said in part: "General Wayne! 
I hope you will pay attention to what I now 
say to you. I wish to inform you where my 
younger brothers, the Miamis, live, and also 
the Pottawattomies of the St. Joseph, together 
with the Wabash Indians. You have pointed 
out the boundary line between the Indians and 
the United States ; but I now take the liberty 
to inform you that that line cuts off from the 
Indians a large portion of country which has 
been enjoyed by my forefathers, time imme- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 35 

morial, without molestation or dispute. The 
prints of my ancestors' houses are everywhere 
to be seen in this portion. . . . It is well 
known that my forefather kindled the first fire 
at Detroit; from thence he extended the line 
to the head waters of the Scioto; from thence 
to the mouth of the Wabash, and from thence 
to Chicago on Lake Michigan. At this place 
I first saw my elder brothers, the Shawnees. 
I have now informed you of the boundaries of 
the Miami nation, where the Great Spirit 
placed my forefather a long time ago, and 
charged him not to sell or part with his lands, 
but to preserve them for his posterity. This 
charge has been handed down to me. . . . 
Now, elder brother, your younger brothers, the 
Miamis, have pointed out to you their country 
and also to your brothers present. When I 
hear proposals on this subject, I will be ready 
to answer. I came with an expectation of hear- 
ing you say good things, but I have not yet 
heard what I expected." 

At the close of the speech by the Little Tur- 
tle, a Wyandotte, Tar-he, arose and said that 
peace was now desired by all. After two days 



36 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

for further discussion, General Wayne, on the 
twenty-second, made a most convincing speech 
in which he went over the entire ground ; he ex- 
plained the situation, reviewed past treaties, 
appealed for peace and gave the terms of the 
treaty in hand. The tribes took three weeks 
more to discuss the treaty further. After that, 
various wampum belts, some of them containing 
a thousand beads, were passed to the tribes. The 
treaty was then signed by some ninety chiefs 
for the Indians, and by Anthony Wayne, rep- 
resenting the United States government. It 
is said to be a great tribute to Anthony Wayne 
that no chief or warrior who gave him the hand 
at Greenville ever after lifted the hatchet 
against the United States. 

The Little Turtle spent his remaining days 
trying to uplift his people; he died in 1812, 
and was buried on the banks of the St. Joseph, 
above Fort Wayne, with military honors. His 
name is now revered as a man who served his 
race and his time. General Wayne died the 
year after the great treaty. He was away from 
home at the time and among the chief mourners 
for him was Mary Vining, of Delaware, who 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 37 

was to become his bride in the following Janu- 
ary. The news of Wayne's death reached her 
on New Year's Day. She put on mourning, 
and the beautiful set of India china, Wayne's 
wedding gift for the newly fitted out ancestral 
home in which they were to live, was never used. 
The story of Mary Vining and Anthony 
Wayne is to-day told to the children of Dela- 
ware. 

As Little Turtle, the Miami chief, is known 
as a great warrior and a great man, Tecumseh, 
the Shawnee chief, is distinguished as a great 
statesman. He spent a large part of his life 
in urging that the Indians either in single 
tribes or in groups, had no right to cede away 
their land without the consent of all. He came 
on this mission before General Harrison at 
Vincennes on August 12th, 1810. He brought 
with him a band of seventy-five warriors and 
this council, like the one at Greenville, took 
time for its completion. For several days there 
were interviews between him and Governor 
Harrison before Tecumseh made his famous 
speech. He did not have before him such a 
company as the Little Turtle had had at Green- 



38 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

ville, nor did he speak in the wake of a great 
defeat; but his cause was none the less urgent 
than that of the Miami, and the attendant cir- 
cumstances were very picturesque. 

When you go to the famous old town of 
Vincennes to-day, they take you to the yard of 
the Harrison mansion, which is still standing 
in good condition, and say, "Here is the place 
where Tecumseh appeared before Governor 
William Henry Harrison, eleven years after 
the American flag had been raised by George 
Rogers Clark over Vincennes." You look up 
and down the Wabash and can easily imagine 
it gay with the canoes of Tecumseh's seventy- 
five warriors. 

Tecumseh said in part: 

"It IS true that I am a Shawnee. My fore- 
fathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior. 
From them I take only my existence ; from my 
tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my 
own fortunes ; and oh ! that I could make that 
of my red people, and of my country, as great 
as the conception of my mind, when I think of 
the Spirit that rules the universe. I would 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 39 

not then come to Governor Harrison to ask 
him to tear the treaty and to obliterate the land- 
mark; but I would say to him: *Sir, you have 
liberty to return to your own country/ 

"The being within, communicating with past 
ages, tells me that once, nor till lately, there 
was no white man on this continent; that till 
then it all belonged to the red men, children 
of the same parents, placed on it by the Great 
Spirit that made them, to keep it . . . and 
to fill it with the same race, once a happy race, 
since made miserable by the white people, who 
are never contented but always encroaching. 
The way, and the only way, to check and to 
stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in 
claiming a common and equal right in the land 
as it was at first and should be yet ; for it never 
was divided. . . • 

"The white people have no right to take the 
land from the Indians, because they had it first, 
it is theirs. They may sell, but all must join. 
Any sale not made by all is not valid. The 
late sale is bad. It was made by a part only. 
. . . It requires all to make a bargain for 
all. All red men have equal rights to the un- 



40 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

occupied land. The right of occupancy is as 
good in one place as another. There can not 
be two occupations in the same place. The 
first excludes all others." 

He told Harrison that the red people were 
being continually driven till they would at last 
have to go into the great lake where they could 
neither stand nor work. The speech of Gov- 
ernor Harrison in reply was interrupted by 
TecUmseh and a break was threatened, but the 
next day Tecumseh apologized and matters 
were settled. After this Tecumseh went south 
trying to unite his people in taking the stand 
for which he had contended ; while he was away 
his brother. The Prophet, and his forces were 
defeated by Harrison at Tippecanoe, and Te- 
cumseh afterward joined the British and fell 
in the battle of the Thames, fighting for them 
in 1813. 

"All that a man can give, he gave — 
His life — the country of his sires 
From the oppressor's grasp to save — 
In vain — quenched are his nation's fires." 
— Charles A. Jones, 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 41 

Governor Harrison was at this time in the 
zenith of his power and was yet to add a long 
list of services to the United States. 



THE LEGEND OF AN OLD 
INDIAN ORCHARD 




STRANGELY DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS 



THE INDIAN ORCHARD 



On a hill down by the river. 

All the Red Men knew, 
Souls are sleeping on the hillside. 

Where an orchard grew. 
And its fruit was fair to look on, 

But no Red Man bent a bough. 
Honoring the hands that planted, 

"Should her spirit hunger now?" 
"No, my children, seek ye further 1" 

Every Red Man said, 
"For the orchard groweth harvests 

For the spirits of the dead.'* 

45 



'^6 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

On a hill down by the river. 

Every river man will show 
Stumps of trees were once an orchard 

Long, long ago. 
Tell of fruit the Red ]Man guarded 

For a foolish rite; 
[But no spirit walks the hillside 

In the silence of the night. 
For the Red Man's sun is sinking. 

And his hunting days are fled. 
And no Pale Face groweth harvests 

For the spirits of the dead. 

— Frances MoirisoUj 1915. 

On a knoll overlooking the Wabash, there 
was once a village of Delaware Indians. 
Among the maidens of the village was one 
strangely different from the others, for her 
skin was pale, her eyes blue and her hair was 
fair and waving. She lived in the wigwam of 
the old chief, whom she called father, but she 
knew she was not of his people, for she could 
remember other palefaces and a home by the 
side of another river. The chief had saved her 
from tomahawk and flames when her mother's 
cabin was burned by the Indians, and carried 
her to his own home and brought her up, loving 
her as his own daughter. 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 47 

One evening in the fall of the year a young 
warrior of the Shawnees decked out in all his 
Indian finery, armed with well-tried weapons, 
stood on the bluff to the east of the river. He 
looked over the level country, later called the 
Fort Harrison Prairie, to the river with its 
fringe of forest. His quick eye caught sight 
of smoke rising from among the trees and soon 
he stood at the chief's own doorway. The old 
chief, enraged at the sudden appearance of a 
hated Shawnee, sprang for his tomahawk, his 
knife and his bow, raising the alarm by his 
war whoop. The stranger fitted an arrow to 
string and waited as the chief approached, his 
ax lifted to strike. But Lena, the fair-haired 
maiden, caught his arm and begged him to 
learn the warrior's errand. 

"My father," she cried, "toucK not the 
stranger; he but asks food and shelter. Did a 
Delaware ever refuse either? Did a Delaware 
ever drive a stranger from his door?" 

The old chief heeded her words and Bade 
the stranger welcome. 

The young brave said he was Nemo, mes- 
senger from the great chief; that the chiefs and 



48 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

warriors of the Delawares, the Shawnees and 
the Senecas had met the paleface Boquet, come 
with many warriors from beyond the moun- 
tains. They had held a great council and 
smoked the calumet, but Boquet would not 
accept their promise of lasting peace until they 
returned to him all their paleface prisoners. 
Nemo showed the old chief a string of wam- 
pum shells so he might read for himself. Some 
showed a paleface walking toward the rising 
sun. Another bore the likeness of the great 
chief, while yet another pictured the young 
Shawnee brave leading the paleface toward 
the East. 

Lena heard Nemo deliver his message, but 
she was surprised when the old chief looked at 
her and wept. Wlien she asked the reason for 
his grief he told her how he had loved her since 
first he took her in his arms. How he had hoped 
she would be his comfort in the old age so fast 
creeping upon him. Now she must go from 
him to another father. Some day she would 
return, but he would not be there to greet her. 

She declared she would not leave him, but 
the old chief knew they dare not disobey the 



ONCE UPON 'A TIME IN INDIANA 49 

summons and bade her go with Nemo back to 
her own people. So she took sorrowful leave 
of her Indian friends and followed the stranger 
toward the East. As they journeyed captives 
were brought to join them, until ten men, 
women and children followed their leader in 
single file. 

It was spring before they reached their des- 
tination and all the way Nemo had protected 
Lena from storm and cold and wild beasts. 
They loved each other dearly, and Nemo 
vowed he would return to claim her for his 
bride. She was taken to her old home on the 
Susquehannah, and brothers and sisters tried 
to win her back to their way of life; but 
she longed for her home on the Wabash and for 
her Indian lover. 

When the leaves began to fall and she had 
nearly given up hope, Nemo appeared one day 
to claim her. Marriage between whites and 
Indians was prohibited in Pennsylvania, and 
her kindred called upon the law to hold her. 
So Lena slipped away while her brothers slept 
and together she and Nemo took the trail back 
to her old home. Of the food her people had 



150 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

given her, the fruit of the apple had pleased 
her most and she did not forget to carry some 
apples with her in her flight. Msluj dangers 
beset their way; once three Miami warriors at- 
tacked them. But love gave Nemo strength, 
and when the battle was over three scalps hung 
from his belt to show his prowess. 

At last they reached the old home. Nothing 
was left of the village save a few blackened 
ruins — ^the chief and all his people had been 
swept away. Nemo and Lena built a frame- 
work of poles and covered it with bark. Nemo's 
bow furnished them with food and they made 
a home by the side of the river. Lena had saved 
the seeds of the apples she had carried away 
with her. These she planted on the sunny 
slope of the hill and tended them with care. 

By and by a fair-haired boy came to them 
and they were very happy. Seven summers 
had passed, when, one day, Nemo heard a 
sound at first like the chirp of a bird, then the 
growl of a wolf and last the howl of a panther, 
and he saw five warriors approaching up the 
river. When he saw that they were Miamis 
he knew his time had come. He fought bravely 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 51 

and sent three warriors on before him. Finally 
he was killed and Lena, throwing her boy into 
the arms of an Indian, buried Nemo's scalping 
knife into her breast. 

The boy grew to manhood among the Mi- 
amis, but when he learned he was a Shawnee 
he joined his own tribe and was in the battle of 
Tippecanoe. He died fighting by the side of 
Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames. 

The apple trees planted by Lena grew and 
bore fruit for many years. The Indians never 
ate the fruit, leaving it for the spirits whom 
they believed to be hovering near. The Indian 
maidens covered the graves with flowers when 
they passed by, for all knew the story of Nemo 
and his fair-haired Lena. When the white 
settlers came, the orchard was still on the hill 
crest and they chose the spot for their first 
burying-ground. To-day the trees are long 
since gone and only a few broken headstones 
remain to mark the spot. The city of Terre 
Haute has grown up about it, a railroad bridge 
spans the river just above it, but the place is 
still known as the Old Indian Orchard and the 
boatmen and fishermen along the river front 
will readily guide you to the spot. 



EARLY TRAILS AND TRACES 




THE EARLY TRAILS AND TRACES 

TRAILS 

Marching", marching, marching. 

Since Life itself began, 
Passes the ancient pageant. 

The Pageant of Beast and Man, 

Millions on millions following. 
Giving each life to the Whole, 

Following on because they must. 
On to a hidden goal ; 

m 



56 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Out of the Darkness coming. 

Face to a distant morn, 
We, who live, are the Builders, 

And build for the great Unborn. 

Beast and Pagan and Christian 
Builded and life was the cost; 

But never a trail was builded yet. 
That God could see it lost. 

Those who lived by dreaming 
And those who had no dream. 

All were parts of the Pageant 

And followed the self-same gleam. 

Those who won were the builders 
And those who yielded the fray. 

And out of a Past so manifold, 
Grow the trails of To-day. 

Marching, marching, marching, 
(Doubt it, you who can!) 

Passes the ancient Pageant, 

The Pageant of Beast and Man! 

We, who know, are the builders 
And we, who hold it to scorn. 

All are parts of the Pageant 
And build for the great Unborn. 

■■ — Frances Morrison, 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA ST 

Once upon a time so long ago that no one 
knows the date, long before the white man 
had a home in Indiana, or even the red man 
lived here, bufFalos were to be found, and great 
herds of them on their way from the prairies 
of Illinois to the salt licks and the blue-grass 
regions of Kentucky, all unconsciously to them- 
selves, began the process of road-making for 
us through the southwestern part of the state, 
and left for us what is known as the "Buffalo 
Trace." Had you lived on the banks of the 
Wabash in that far-off time, you would have 
seen thousands of these animals crossing and 
recrossing the river in the course of a year. 
The historian of Dubois County says that as 
late as 1801, there were still to be seen in his 
county large patches of grass greener than 
the rest, marking the place where the male buf- 
falo took his mud-bath along the trace named 
after him. He would single out a swampy 
spot, fall on one of his front knees, plunge 
first his horns, then his head, into the wet earth 
and in a half-hour would excavate a hole twelve 
feet in diameter into which the water at once 
filled. Then he rolled over and over till he 



^8 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

had cooled himself, coming out entirely cov- 
ered with the muddy mortar and making quite 
an uncanny sight. Hundreds of them would 
wait for their turn to cool themselves in this 
way. 

The main trace made hy the buffalo in In- 
diana went from the mouth of White River 
to the falls of the Ohio and over it many of 
the early settlers traveled into the state. It 
was also the route of the old stage road from 
Louisville to Vincennes, which was after a 
while dotted with the quaint taverns of which 
we have heard so much. This trace was further 
the connecting link between the Indian trail 
and the traces and the first roads made by the 
white man. So the presence of the buffalo on 
our state seal belongs there both by right of 
history and of service. 

Long after the countless tread of buffalo 
feet had beaten this trace solid, and his horns 
had widened it by breaking away the obstruct- 
ing boughs and bushes, another interesting 
sight might have met the eyes of anj'- one able 
to penetrate into the unbroken wilderness with 
its gigantic trees and underbrush in the heart 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 59 

of Indiana. Here could be seen Indians march- 
ing stealthily in single file, each stepping ex- 
actly in the footprints of the one in front of 
Iiim. In this way the paths over which they 
passed were worn down till they were some- 
times knee deep and the white man knew them 
as the Indian trails. 

And where were these Indians going? They 
might have been going upon one of many 
errands. If they were decked out in their war- 
paint they were likely going to do battle with 
some hostile tribe; otherwise they might have 
been going on some friendly visit to another 
camp or village. They were oftenest seen on 
hunting expeditions, as it was by the arrow 
that they brought down their game. Fre- 
quently they carried messages from their chief 
to his children of the forest, simimoning them 
to the council fires to hear the word of the 
great Manitou, to smoke the peace pipe, or to 
determine upon a course of action concerning 
the paleface or some captive. 

The habitual mode of Indians marching sin- 
gle file is illustrated in the following incident : 
A Miami brave led his band in pursuit of a 



60 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

marauding party. They tracked them to a 
marsh and here the fugitives, after walking on 
a tree trunk, had leaped to the soft ground, 
each alighting in the tracks of the first one. 
Feeling sure their Miami pursuers would do 
the same thing they cunningly sank into one 
of the footprints in the soft mud, an arrow with 
the barb pointing upward. The Miami leader 
did what was expected; his foot was pierced 
by the arrow and his followers had to carry him 
back to the village. 

The story of all the Indian trails of Indiana 
can not be clearly and fully told because many 
of those that once existed have passed entirely 
from the knowledge of man. Perhaps there 
were hundreds, even thousands of them made 
as the red man traveled the forest in almost 
every direction. In nearly every county of 
Indiana, you will hear of some Indian trail that 
lingers on in the memory of the oldest inhabi- 
tants. Some of the field maps of the early sur- 
veyors are invaluable sources for mention of 
trails, but many of these do not always coin- 
cide with the trails of tradition. One of the 
best instances of the importance that the In- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANii 61 

dians attached to their trails is gathered from 
the speech of the famous JNIiami chief. Little 
Turtle, to General Anthony Wayne at the 
treaty of Greenville in 1795. The Miamis 
held the portage between the Maumee and the 
Wabash Rivers, where Fort Wayne now 
stands. It was a very important point as it 
commanded the passage from the Great Lakes 
to the Mississippi Valley. Little Turtle did 
not want to give it up. He poetically referred 
to it as "the glorious gate" through which all 
the good words of our chiefs have to pass from 
the north to the south and the east to the west. 
It may be inferred from this that here was the 
meeting place of many trails from many di- 
rections. The trails forming "trunk lines" of 
Indian travel led from one Indian town to 
another, most of which lay north of the center 
of our territory on White River and the upper 
Wabash. Mr. J. H. B. Rowland said that the 
mouth of Fall Creek, where Indianapolis 
stands, was a meeting point of many trails that 
crossed White River here. One reason for 
this was that the bar of sand, carried out of 
Fall Creek, had made a good ford across the 



62 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

river. One of the most frequently traveled 
routes came from the falls of the Ohio River. 
Wherever we know of Indian towns over the 
state, we know that trails connected those of 
the same tribe. We love the old names of 
Muncietown and Andersontown. We are told 
that it was over an old Indian trail going west- 
ward from Connersville, that William Conner 
had the goods hauled for his trading post on 
White River below Noblesville. 

The old Sac trail from Illinois, which crossed 
Lake and Porter Counties in the northern part 
of the state is one that deserves mention. It 
was used so long and so many Indian depre- 
dations were connected with it that mothers 
long after would say to their children going in 
that direction, "Eeware of the old Sac trail." 

Another trail, probably much traveled, was 
one that followed the Wabash from the Fort 
Wayne portage to the Wea towns near La- 
fayette, and the memory of this trail is perpet- 
uated by the name of "Tecumseh Trail." 

The way that Indians in general looked upon 
their trails is well illustrated in the following 
quotation : 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 63 

Peter Wilson, a Cayuga chief, said of the 
Indian trails of New York, before the historical 
society of that state: "You have heard of the 
Indian trails, and the geography of the state 
of New York before it was known to the pale- 
faces. The land of Ga-nun-no (New York) 
was once laced by these trails from Albany to 
Buffalo, trails that my people had trod for 
centuries — worn so deep by the feet of the Iro- 
quois that they became your own roads of 
travel, when my people no longer walked in 
them. Your highways still lie in these paths ; 
the same lines of communication bind one part 
of the long house to another. My friend has 
told you that the Iroquois have no monuments. 
These highways are their monuments." 

And now we come to the "trace." The buf- 
falo "trace" spoken of at the first of this paper 
is distinguished from the word "trace" as it 
has come to be used now. The trace now 
usually has reference to the "white man's road" ; 
it means a connecting road consciously made 
between two places, one cut out of the woods 
or swamps. Traces in the early times may have 
followed the Indian trails; for the Indians 



64 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

knew the ins and outs of the forests and the 
best way of getting through them and where 
the streams were; but in their wild free life 
spent in hunting and roaming at will through 
the dense woods, they did not always care 
whether the way be straight or crooked, long 
or short. To the white man distance was a 
great handicap and as soon as he could he began 
to overcome it. Just think that if to-day you 
wanted to go from Franklin County to Greene 
County, only a few hours away, you should 
have to go to the Ohio River, down it, then up 
the Wabash over to the place. Jacob Whetzel 
lived in Franklin County and owned land in 
Greene County, and wanted to go to his new 
purchase and this distance is what confronted 
him. So he determined to avoid the round- 
about route by blazing a road through the for- 
ests as straight to the place as he could. 

Jacob Whetzel was a pattern pioneer; he 
was a born and trained woodsman, an Indian 
fighter, a famous hunter and a brave man. He 
had served as a spy and a scout under St. Clair 
and Harrison. And now we can see how this 
undertaking must have appealed to his love 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 65 

of daring, of work and adventure, and have 
been greatly to his liking. Early in the year 
1818, the first thing he did was to gain per- 
mission from the Delaware chief, Anderson, 
who had control of the land and for whom An- 
dersontown was named, to cut a road through 
from near Brookville to the bluiFs of White 
River. In July of the same year, Jacob Whet- 
zel and his son Cyrus, a strong youth of eigh- 
teen, with four strong axmen, making six in 
all, set out upon their task. Their plan was 
for the father and one of the axmen, Thomas 
Rush, to go in advance blazing the route to 
the nearest point on White River and then 
make the road back to the settlement in Frank- 
lin County, while Cyrus with the rest of the 
men would follow carrying axes and nine days' 
provisions. This company had only one ex- 
citing experience with the Indians, a band of 
whom had passed them during the day and 
given assurance of their friendship, but came 
back at night and were seen prowling around 
the camp. Cyrus and his men watched them 
and fi!nally let their camp-fire burn low and 



66 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

stole away. The route blazed by Jacob Whet- 
zel ran not far from Rushville, Shelbyville and 
Boggstown. He came out on the White River 
bluffs where the town of Waverly now stands, 
many miles above the place which he had 
started to reach in Greene County; but he 
found White River so beautiful here that he 
decided to make the place his future home. 
He went on alone down the river, while Cyrus 
and the men cut the way back to Franklin 
County, making the famous Whetzel Trace 
a road wide enough for a wagon team. The 
work was not easy; where the timber growth 
was not gigantic, the swamps were deep and 
the men were often "mid-sides in water." They 
spoke of wonderful sugar trees along the creek 
by that name, in the unbroken wilderness. They 
named Honey Creek from the wild honey they 
found there, and they made a first-hand ac- 
quaintance with a part of central Indiana. 
Food finally gave out and they had to return 
for supplies, but they came back and finished 
the trace. It was a stupendous undertaking 
for the time in which it was done. It opened 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 67 

the way for hundreds of settlers to come to 
the heart of Indiana and the early home-makers 
in the counties of Marion, Johnson, Franklin, 
Shelby and Morgan owed Jacob Whetzel a 
debt for making possible settlements as early 
as they were. The pioneer histories make fre- 
quent mention of the use made of Whetzel's 
Trace. 

Next in importance to Whetzel's is the Berry 
Trace which led northward from the Ohio 
River and over part of its route followed por- 
tions of the Indiana trail from the falls. It 
crossed the Whetzel Trace southeast of Green- 
wood. A description of the Berry Trace is 
given in Nowland's Reminiscences of Indi- 
anapolis, 

These old trails and traces are filled with 
associations of pioneer Indiana. Wherever 
one crosses them he can imagine the Indian, 
the missionary and the early settler as they 
passed over them in the days when the buffalo 
was still to be seen, and later when the taverns 
sprang up. 

It harks back a long stretch to the "Buffalo 
Trace'' from the Dixie and Lincoln higjiways 



68 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

of 1916; but we find that the modern time con- 
cerns itself in the same problems of communi- 
cation and road-making that Jacob Whetzel 
began in the wilderness of Indiana in 1818. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK HERO OF 
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 




THE HERO OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 

In the same month and year, April, 1775, 
that Paul Revere rode on his midnight errand 
to arouse the minute men of Lexington and 
Concord against the approaching British 
troops, a young Virginia surveyor, George 
Rogers Clark, left his home near Monticello 
and started for the wild but beautifully for- 
ested regions of Kentucky. He was destined 
to become the companion and co-worker of that 
peerless pioneer and frontiersman, Daniel 

71 



72 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Boone, and to write his name in large letters in 
the history of the great Northwest. 

The territory northwest of the Ohio River 
and reaching to the Mississippi River belonged 
to the state of Virginia. As the Revolutionary 
War progressed Clark realized that the cap- 
ture of the British military posts at Kaskaskia, 
Vincennes and Detroit, which were bases of 
action for the Indians in their attacks on the 
settlers of this region and of that part of Ken- 
tucky where he lived, would free the territory 
from the invading British foe and would go 
far to stop the murderous atrocities of the In- 
dians. He returned to Virginia and laid the 
matter before Governor Patrick Henry and 
his executive council, who favored his plans. 
Governor Henry gave Clark the commission 
of lieutenant-colonel and authorized him to 
raise seven companies of soldiers of fifty men 
each. He gave him two sets of instructions 
— one for public use, that he should enlist men 
for militia service in Kentucky, which was a 
county of Virginia, and the other, for his pri- 
vate use, that he should enlist men to march 
against Kaskaskia. 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 73 

After considerable difficulty the men were 
enlisted, principally from Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania. Money was provided for the expense 
of the expedition and Thomas Jefferson, who 
had been a neighbor of Clark, and others, 
promised to use their influence to secure a 
grant of three hundred acres of land for each 
of Clark's men if the expedition were success- 
ful. This was not such a liberal promise as 
it would seem to us, for even as late as Clark's 
death, in 1818, the best land in Indiana was 
being sold by the government at Washington 
at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. 

In May, 1778, Clark, with one hundred and 
fifty men, went from the head waters of the 
Ohio River down to the place where Louisville 
now is situated. Here he first unfolded his ac- 
tual plans to his men. Some deserted when 
they learned what was before them, but a num- 
ber of settlers joined the company, so that one 
hundred and fifty-three men started down the 
Ohio on June twenty-fourth of that year. 
They landed ten miles below the mouth of the 
Tennessee River and marched overland one 
hundred and twenty miles to Kaskaskia, which 



74 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

was situated on the Mississippi River, some 
miles south of the present location of St. Louis 
but on the Illinois side. Kaskaskia and the 
neighboring fort of Cahokia were taken by- 
surprise, surrendering without bloodshed. 

Clark's next move was to enlist the services 
of the French priest, Father Gibault, an able 
and upright man who was a power among 
his own people, and to send him with a few 
other Frenchmen to Vincennes in an attempt 
to win the French settlers to the American 
cause. This was successful and the American 
flag was then first raised on Indiana soil. It 
remained over Fort Sackville at Vincennes 
from July imtil December, when, in the ab- 
sence of an American garrison, a company of 
British soldiers again took possession. 

In January Colonel Francis Vigo brought 
news of the reoccupation of Vincennes by a 
British force under General Hamilton. Three 
courses were now open to Clark: he could re- 
treat to a safer position; he could remain at 
Kaskaskia and risk being attacked by superior 
numbers from Vincennes and Detroit in the 
spring; or he could make an attempt to ac- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 75 

complish the seemingly impossible feat of sur- 
prising the British while they were comfort- 
ably resting in winter quarters. With 
characteristic swiftness of thought and daring, 
the twenty-six-year-old commander chose the 
last. 

The term of enlistment of his men had ex- 
pired the previous August, but through his 
persuasion one hundred of them reenlisted 
and were joined by seventy French settlers. 
With this band Clark started out to march the 
hundred and sixty miles from Kaskaskia to 
Vincennes. Heavy rains flooded the flat prai- 
ries, making large lakes of water and causing 
the streams to overflow. Progress was very 
difficult. Freezing weather set in and the pro- 
visions gave out. Game was scarce, owing to 
the floods, and about all the men had to eat 
was the little they could procure from the few 
settlers along the way. 

On February fifteenth they came to the two 
forks of the Little Wabash, whose bottom 
lands were flooded. Five miles of icy water 
lay before them. There were no boats. They 
built a rude canoe and a small raft for the 



76 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

baggage taken from the pack-horses, waded 
into the freezing water, which came to their 
waists and sometimes higher, and, carrying 
their rifles and powder horns above their heads, 
proceeded over the bottoms till they reached 
the channel of the river. They swam the horses 
over the channels, loaded them again, and went 
on to a hill, where they spent another night 
in this waste of water. Having had nothing 
to eat for two days, they were in a deplorable 
condition and serious situation. They set about 
making more canoes and had the good fortune 
to capture a canoe carrying Frenchmen who 
had been sent out from Vincennes on scout 
duty. The Frenchmen added to the discour- 
agement of Clark's men by telling them that 
the whole country around Vincennes was un- 
der water and that it would be impossible for 
them to reach the fort. Clark, however, pushed 
on until he reached the Wabash. Fortunately, 
one of his men shot a deer, which provided the 
one hundred and seventy men with meat and 
put new heart into them. Nevertheless, some 
of the French Creoles gave out and wanted 
to return. Other men took to the idea and 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 77 

the enterprise trembled in the balance. In the 
company there was a tall Virginia sergeant, 
six feet two, on whose shoulders Clark placed 
his drummer boy. To the sound of his drum 
the men plunged again into the icy flood. 
There were two days more of struggle and 
hunger. Then they captured a canoe paddled 
by Indian squaws, and found in it a quarter 
of a buffalo and other provisions. 

Now they were near enough to Vincennes 
and Fort Sackville to hear the morning and 
evening guns. They began the final march 
in water sometimes up to their necks. To 
make sure of all of his men, Clark detached 
Captain Bowman, his most trusty officer, and 
twenty men to bring up the rear, with orders 
to shoot the first man who tried to retreat. No 
one tried. Breaking the ice as they proceeded, 
they finally reached an elevation two miles 
from Vincennes, after having spent ten days 
without rest or fire and with only three or four 
scanty meals. 

Clark next surrounded the fort, which cov- 
ered about three acres on the river's bank and 
whose walls were fortified with several pieces 



78 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

of artillery and swivels, and threw up a slight 
breastwork in front of the gate of the stock- 
ade, announcing his presence by a rifle fusil- 
lade. A British sergeant was seriously wound- 
ed and the seventy-nine well-kept, well-fed, 
well-drilled British soldiers began shooting 
away in every direction, ignorant of the exact 
location and strength of those attacking. The 
Americans kept up their rifle fire so effectively 
that the British were unable to use their 
mounted guns. 

Hamilton, known as the "hair-buyer gen- 
eral," because he is said to have paid the In- 
dians for the scalps of settlers, wished to make 
terms with Clark. The latter demanded an 
unconditional surrender and gave the British 
general one hour in which to make up his mind. 
During the hour a party of Indians, friendly 
to the British, appeared with scalps of settlers 
at their belts. Clark had them captured and 
then killed them with tomahawks in full view 
of the garrison. The garrison was thoroughly 
frightened and Hamilton surrendered. This 
was on February 25th, 1779. The next morn- 
ing the British marched out and delivered their 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 79 

arms to the Americans, and the American flag 
was raised for the second time on Indiana soil. 
When Colonel Clark in 1781 visited Vir- 
ginia to consider an expedition against the 
British at Detroit, he happened there when 
that state was invaded by the British under 
Benedict Arnold. He rendered important 
service in driving the enemy from the coun- 
try. Soon after, Governor Jefferson issued 
him a commission as "brigadier-general of all 
the forces to be embodied in an expedition 
westward of the Ohio." It should be remem- 
bered that Clark was a Virginia officer only, 
and not an officer of the Continental Army. 
In response to a letter from Governor Jeffer- 
son, General Washington said that he always 
had been of the opinion that the reduction of 
the post of Detroit was the only certain means 
of giving peace and security to the western 
frontier, and that he would give directions to 
the commandant at Fort Pitt to deliver to 
Clark the war materials he requested and "to 
form such a detachment of Continental troops 
as he can safely spare and put them under the 
command of Colonel Clark." Unfortunately, 



80 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the number of men necessary to succeed 
against Detroit was not to be had. Twenty- 
five years of terrible Indian wars that followed 
might have been prevented if the British in- 
stigators could have been removed. However, 
Clark had made sure of the permanent posses- 
sion by the United States of a large territory, 
some two hundred and fifty thousand square 
miles, from which later were made the states 
of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wiscon- 
sin and a part of Minnesota. Virginia gave 
Clark eight thousand acres of land and each 
soldier of the "Illinois regiment" one hundred 
and sixty-eight acres of land in that part of 
Indiana later known as "Clark's grant." Clark 
spent his last years on this grant in his cabin 
near the falls of "la belle riviere," as the French 
called the Ohio. 

A story is told, although not authenticated, 
that when Clark was old, crippled and in pov- 
erty, not having been able to secure settlement 
with the government for the money he had ad- 
vanced for his campaigns, Virginia presented 
him with a sword. He broke the sword inta 
pieces, exclaiming, "Wlien Virginia wanted a 



ONCE UPON A TIIME IN INDIANA 81 

sword, I gave her mine. Now she sends me 
a toy. I want bread." 

Two years after Indiana became a state, the 
man, "except for w^hose victories the North- 
west would have been a British-Canadian col- 
ony," as Bancroft said, died. In ]Monmnent 
Place, in Indianapolis, there is a statue of 
General George Rogers Clark, representing 
him as having just stepped out of the icy wa- 
ters on to Indiana soil. Sword in hand, he 
is leading his troops with that dauntless cour- 
age and that directness of action which char- 
acterized this heroic figure of the Revolution. 

No story of Clark would be complete with 
only a passing reference to his "little antic 
drummer," as he calls him in his journal. 
When Clark surrounded the hall in Kaskaskia 
on that memorable Fourth of July night, 1778, 
he found the French dancing to the music of 
the drum and violin. His martial mind re- 
membered the drum and, soon after, he heard 
it again, when a group of boys playing soldier 
marched by his headquarters. He came out 
and watched the boys, who were led by Pierre 



82 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Charleville* with his drum. From then Pi- 
erre played for Clark's men when they drilled. 
When Clark made his famous march on Vin- 
cennes, Pierre was allowed to accompany him. 
Pierre was fourteen years old at the time, not 
much larger and not so old as his drum, which 
had been in possession of others, but probably 
never had meant so much to any one before. 
The lad loved music and dancing and march- 
ing and was never so happy as when beating 
the drum. He was a constant source of enter- 
tainment to the men on their weary marches, 
for he would float on his drum and perform 
tricks for their amusement. Clark himself tells 
of putting the "little antic drummer" on the 
shoulders of the tall sergeant, and how the 
men, who had felt they could go no farther, 
responded to the call of the drum. Over a 
century has passed since then, but the tale of 
the drummer lad has lived and will live on for 
the children of Indiana. 



*This name and the details of the story of the drummer 
boy are pure tradition, but serve to "adorn a tale." 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 83 
THE DRUMMER LAD 

You have heard the tale of the brave Dutch lad, 
Who held the dike 'gainst the sea. 
The Old World told it unto the New; 
But we've a tale that is just as tme. 
That calls to the ears of you and me. 
If we listen, the Past is never dumb: 
Over the years, over the years. 
Rolls the beat! beat! beat! of a young lad's 
drum. 

''We must on, my men," cried General Clark, 
But they gazed on the ice and treacherous mud, 
"You have come through danger from hostile 

bands. 
To deliver Vincennes from British hands.^ 
Will you be stayed by the last wild flood?" 
They muttered dissent. "Will none of you 

come?" 
Over the sullen, dissenting hum. 
Came the beat! beat! beat! of a young lad's 

drum. 

"Come on! Come! Come! 

I am the drum! 

I call to you all. 

Ever to you. 

I call to your love of the red, white and blue! 



84 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

To your country's need 
You dare not be dumb ; 
You shall give heed! 
Come on ! Come ! Come ! 
I am the drum! 
Come on! Come! Come!" 

Clark lifted him high to the sergeant's shoul- 
der; 
They forgot their bodies were cold and numb, 
For loud in their hearts beat the "Come ! Come ! 

Come!" 
As the young lad called to the men who were 

older. 
And marching feet followed the beat, 
The "Come! Come! Come!" of the calling 

drum. 
The peril was braved, Vincennes was saved. 
To the "Come! Come! Come!" of a young lad's 

drum! ._ ^^ . 

— Frances Morrison, 1915. 



HOW CLARK WAS AIDED BY 
PIERRE GIBAULT 

Priest— Patriot 




THERE LANDED AT POST VI^STCElSriQ^ES A YOUNG PRIEST 

There landed at Post Vinoennes on the 
Wabash in 1770 a young priest whose features 
revealed the daring of an explorer and the 
zeal of an apostle. It was Father Pierre Gi- 
bault, born at Montreal in 1737 and ordained 
priest in 1768. He at once started as mission- 
ary for the country of the "Illinois." He had 
already worked unceasingly farther west, even 
at our modern St. Louis; he had been pros- 
trated by the "western fever," had been way- 
laid by Indians, twenty-two of his people hav 

8T 



88 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

ing been scalped, and now his love for souls 
had induced him to visit Vincennes. 

Having revived the faith at Vincennes, 
Father Gibault again traversed the north and 
west of Indiana and Illinois midst constant 
danger. Thrice he was captured by Indians, 
escaping with his life only upon promising not 
to reveal their whereabouts. 

Heturning from a visit to Canada (1775), 
he reached Michilimackinac. Then, being un- 
able to proceed to Illinois, he determined to 
winter at Detroit, whither he returned in a 
canoe, in constant peril from the ice. An in- 
experienced man and a boy paddled and he 
guided. He writes: "The suffering I have 
undergone has so deadened my faculties that 
I only half feel the chagrin at not being able 
to return to Illinois." 

They were hard-grained timber, yet they 
had such tender heart fibers, those frontier 
priests ! 

Meanwhile the colonies had rebelled against 
England and it was now a question as to the 
side the Catholics northwest of the Ohio would 
take. Father Gibault had both the political 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 89 

and religious welfare of his large mission, In- 
diana and Illinois, at heart. He was then at 
Kaskaskia, and thought it best for his people 
to side with the colonies. 

With a ridiculously small force of about one 
hundred fifty poorly equipped Virginians, 
Clark drove the English from the strong mili- 
tary station at Kaskaskia. The English were 
constantly inciting and arming the Indians 
against the colonies and were a constant peril 
in their rear. Under the circumstances Clark's 
task became possible only by having the set- 
tlers on his side. Hostility of the settlers 
meant hostility of the Indians, and either 
would have meant disaster for Clark. The 
winning of the people was the work of Father 
Gibault. 

When Clark entered Kaskaskia Father Gi- 
bault came to him for an interview, and Clark 
himself said that when Father Gibault asked 
whether he would give him liberty to perform 
his duty in his church, "I told him that I had 
nothing to do with churches other than to de- 
fend them from insult; that by laws of the 
state his religion had as great privilege as any 



90 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

other." The priest returned and persuaded 
the people. 

Clark took possession of the town without 
having fired a shot, even before the British 
commander was aware of the fact. Another 
version tells of Clark's entry into Kaskaskia 
by night, but in either case Father Gibault was 
instrumental in persuading the people, as he 
also was in the other towns taken by Clark 
along the Mississippi. 

Gibault suggested and urged upon Clark 
how he might now take Vincennes without 
bloodshed. He furthermore furnished Clark 
two companies of troops and guides, all mem- 
bers of his congregation, and so induced Fran- 
cis Vigo, a member of his mission, to aid Clark. 
Next to Clark and Gibault, Indiana owes most 
to Vigo. In order that bloodshed might be 
avoided Gibault himself volunteered to go to 
Vincennes to persuade his people as he thought 
best for them. Accordingly Gibault and Doc- 
tor John Baptiste Laffont, his confidential 
friend, being commissioned by Clark, went to 
Vincennes in the summer of 1778 and, in the 
absence of the English garrison and officials. 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 91 

Gibault assembled the people, won them and 
himself administered the oath of allegiance to 
the states. The English flag was hauled down 
and replaced by the flag of the United States, 
the civil part of the mission being conducted 
by Doctor Laffont. After Gibault had re- 
turned to Kaskaskia from this successful pa- 
triotic mission it was resolved to move against 
Vincennes during the winter rather than wait 
for spring, when the English would be more 
ready. Clark, being none too confident of the 
outcome and fearing that Hamilton might 
even attack Kaskaskia, sent Gibault with pub- 
lic papers and money across the Mississippi. 
This patriot, attended by but one man, set out 
in January, 1779. Floating ice detained him 
for three days on a little island. He reached 
Kaskaskia from this journey in time to en- 
courage the troops, who were about to start to 
capture Vincennes, by making to them a spir- 
ited speech and giving them his blessing, and 
thus Father Gibault helped Clark to raise the 
American flag over Vincennes, never to be 
hauled down. 

The red men, now seeing that the French 



92 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

and the missionaries accepted the friendship of 
the Virginians, concluded also to make peace 
with Clark. Thus the western frontier was for 
the time secured against most of the Indian 
depredations and the Northwest Territory was 
saved to the United States without the loss of 
a single man, and to Father Gibault must be 
given the credit for his share in the under- 
taking. 

These patriotic services made great drains 
on the health and the means of Father Gibault. 
For America he had made himself poor and 
without a home, and now, broken in health in 
his old age, he had to part with the last com- 
fort, his two faithful servants. It is pitiful to 
read his modest request to Governor St. Clair 
for a small lot in the village of Cahokia. He 
did not receive it, nor its equivalent, though 
the Virginia Legislature had, in 1780, by a 
special resolution, acknowledged the greatness 
of his efforts for the American cause. 

Later enemies even tried to ruin his good 
name and accused him before the bishop. His 
defense is that of a strong man who has been 
deeply wronged. He said in part: *'To all 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 93 

the pains and hardships I have undergone in 
my different journeys to the most distant 
points, winter and summer, in attending to so 
many villages in Illinois distant from each 
other, in all weathers and times, so that I never 
slept four nights in a year in my own bed, 
never hesitating to start on a moment's notice, 
w^hether sick or well . . . and all with no 
other end in view than God's own glory and 
the salvation of his neighbor; how, I say can 
you believe such a priest, zealous to fulfil the 
duties of his holy ministr}^ how, I say, can 
such a one be known as a person to spread 
scandal or be addicted to intoxication?" 

Considering all this, need we wonder that 
he so deeply felt the ingratitude of his coun- 
try that at moments he even regretted having 
befriended it? He retired to Spanish posses- 
sions beyond the INIississippi, and finally set- 
tled at New JNIadrid, where he died, a poor 
man, in 1804, forsaken and forgotten. 

Xow is surely the time for Indiana, in her 
centennial year, to give due recognition to 
Father Gibault for his noble services in the 
formation of her great commonwealth., 



WHAT FRANCIS VIGO DID FOR 
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 




FRANQOIS VIGO 

Os! all the men who helped in the saving 
of the Northwest Territory, Francis Vigo 
seems to have given the most disinterested 
help. Of a different race, he was not like 
Clark and his brave band, fighting for home 
and country. Living in peace and plenty mi- 
der the flag of his own country, he was not 
like the Frenchmen, who fought to throw off 
SL foreign yoke. From a pure love of liberty 
and a wish to help the weaker side he crossed 



98 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the border, and threw in his lot with the Amer- 
icans, well knowing the cost to him if the Brit- 
ish won. 

Francis Vigo was born in Mondovi, Island 
of Sardinia, in 1747. While the island be- 
longed to Italy, it had only lately come into 
Italian possession from Spain, and many 
Spaniards lived there, so Vigo may have been 
of Spanish parentage, come, possibly, from 
that city of Vigo on Vigo Bay in the old prov- 
ince of Galicia, Spain. At any rate, he left 
home at a very early age and joined a Span- 
ish regiment as a private soldier. With his 
regiment he went to Havana and from there 
to New Orleans, then a Spanish possession. 

When about twenty-five he received an hon- 
orable discharge from the army and entered 
into the employ of some rich men of New Or- 
leans in the fur business, trading on the Ar- 
kansas and its tributaries. That he, a private 
soldier, uneducated as far as book learning 
goes, should so early have won such powerful 
friends and so extensively engaged in business 
proves that he must early have shown char- 
acteristics of sagacity, courtesy and generosity 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 99 

which he is known to have possessed in later 
years. 

Vigo soon made his way up the Mississippi 
to St. Louis, then a small Spanish trading post 
near the boundary line between Spanish and 
British possessions. There he went into busi- 
ness on his own account and became the friend 
and business partner of Governor de Leyba. 

He was successful in his dealings with the 
Indians, and by the time he was thirty-one 
years old he had amassed quite a fortune, and, 
known as "The Spanish Merchant," was one 
of the leading men of the whole region. 

Then it was that he heard the great news 
of the capture of Fort Kaskaskia from the 
British on the Fourth of July of that year, 
1778, by Colonel George Rogers Clark and 
his men of Virginia and Kentucky. The peo- 
ple in this region, so far away from the At- 
lantic, knew that a terrible struggle was going 
on between the colonists and the mother coun- 
try of England, but the coming of Clark and 
his brave men brought it home to them for the 
first time. Vigo became interested in the 
American cause and went to Kaskaskia to see 



100 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Colonel Clark, and, although he was neither 
American nor British and under no obligation 
whatever to take part in the struggle, he of- 
fered to help in whatever way he could. Clark 
had become uneasy about Captain Helm at 
Vincennes, where Helm and one other of 
Clark's men held Fort St. Vincent after the 
French inhabitants, through the influence of 
Father Gibault, had thrown off the British rule 
and sworn allegiance to the American cause. 
Clark had had word from Helm that he was 
short of supplies and ammunition. 

He knew that Vigo had great influence with 
the French people, so he asked him to take 
supplies to Vincennes and learn the state of 
affairs at that post. Vigo agreed to do this and 
set out with one servant, Renau by name, on 
December eighteenth, to cross the Illinois coun- 
try, little knowing that the day before Gov- 
ernor Hamilton had retaken the fort for the 
British. When they were about six miles from 
Vincennes, encamped on the Embarras River, 
they were surprised by a band of Indians un- 
der the command of a British officer. The 
officer laid his hand on Vigo's shoulder, say- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 101 

ing, "You are my prisoner." Vigo indignantly 
replied, "Hands off ! I may be your prisoner, 
but lay not your bands upon me." They took 
from him his horse, saddle-bags, arms, cloth- 
ing and money, worth in all about five hundred 
dollars, and led him off, a prisoner, to Fort 
Sackville, as the English called Fort St. Vin- 
cent. It is said that on the way with his captors 
Vigo remembered that he had a letter from 
Colonel Clark to Captain Helm, which, if dis- 
covered, would bring upon him the penalty of 
a spy, which we all know is death. As he was 
being ferried across the river he thought he 
would throw it into the water, but feared detec- 
tion, so he managed to chew up the paper, de- 
stroying in that way the only evidence against 
him. 

When taken before Governor Hamilton he 
explained that he was a Spanish subject and 
claimed that, as a trader, he had a right to 
travel over the country supplying the Indians 
with goods. Hamilton, although he was sus- 
picious, could not hold him in captivity with- 
out proof against him, requiring only that he 
report daily. He even offered to release Vigo 



10£ ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

on his word of honor that he would "not do 
any act during the war injurious to the Brit- 
ish interests." This promise Vigo refused to 
give, so he waited impatiently day after day, 
anxious to he off with his news to Clark. He 
had a wonderful memory and kept his eyes and 
ears open for every bit of information he could 
gather. 

His good friend, Father Gibault, was there, 
and finally, after service one Sunday, this good 
priest marched at the head of his congregation 
up to the fort and demanded Vigo's release. 
Governor Hamilton wished to be on friendly 
terms with the people of the town, and when 
they threatened that they would sell no more 
supplies to the garrison, he finally yielded on 
condition that Vigo would "not do anything 
injurious to the British interests on his way 
to St. Louis." Vigo signed an agreement to 
this effect and with two companions made a 
swift journey down the Wabash and the Ohio 
and up the Mississippi to St. Louis, keeping 
his promise faithfully all the way. Once in 
St. Louis, he hurriedly changed his clothes, 
and, without stopping for rest, returned to his 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 103 

boat and made all speed to Kaskaskia, reach- 
ing that place on the evening of January the 
twenty-ninth. 

There he laid before Clark exact informa- 
tion about Vincennes. That Hamilton, learn- 
ing that the "rebels" had taken possession of 
the fort in the summer, had come with a force 
of British and Indians, and Captain Helm had 
been forced to surrender. How Vigo must 
have enjoyed telling Clark how that intrepid 
officer had trained his one gun on the gateway 
and, with his one gunner at hand, had stood 
with lighted match in readiness until he re- 
ceived the assurance that the surrender should 
be with all the honors of war. 

By the time Vigo reached there, however, 
Hamilton had sent some of his men back to 
Detroit; others were out with bands of In- 
dians to war upon the settlers as far as Ken- 
tucky, so there were only about eighty men 
left at the fort. Hamilton thought it would 
be impossible to go farther in the winter 
weather, but expected large reenforcements 
in the spring with which he intended to attack 
Clark at Kaskaskia. 



104 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

This news determined Clark to take the des- 
perate chance of surprising Hamilton before 
spring and reenforcements came. But he was 
out of money, and here again Vigo came to 
his aid. Clark and his soldiers had brought 
with them "Continental paper" in place of 
skins and silver coins, which were what the 
French people were accustomed to use, and 
they were not willing to accept this paper 
money in exchange for supplies until Vigo set 
them the example. He had a hard time to 
make them understand it, as they said "their 
commandant never made money." 

Vigo had a branch store in Kaskaskia, and 
he and Father Gibault and other prominent 
men tried to keep up the value of the paper 
money with little success. He himself told the 
story of the poor Frenchmen who came to buy 
coffee, which was a dollar a pound. When 
asked what kind of payment he would make, 
the Frenchman replied ''doiileur" When it is 
remembered that it took twenty of these Con- 
tinental dollars to buy one silver dollar's worth 
of coffee and that the French word "douleur'^ 
means "grief" or "pain," the word seemed to 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 105 

fit the case exactly. Especially so to Vigo, 
who at the close of the campaign had about 
twenty thousand of the ''douleurs'' for which 
he never received a dollar. More than this, 
he gathered all the money he could spare and 
gave it, amounting to more than eleven thou- 
sand dollars, to Clark, accepting for it drafts 
drawn by Clark on the financial agent of Vir- 
ginia, Oliver Pollock, then at New Orleans. 
Vigo knew that Virginia was in distress and 
might not pay these drafts on demand, but 
such was his generous nature that he seems not 
to have counted the cost. 

Only through this aid was Clark able to 
carry out his bold scheme to a successful end. 
After capturing the fort, Clark renamed it 
Fort Patrick Henry, so it might well be called 
the fort of many names, having changed three 
times within the year. 

After the struggle was over Vigo became 
an American citizen and w^ent to live at Vin- 
cennes. He was made a colonel and was com- 
mandant of the post^ performing many services 
for his adopted country. It was through him 
that the whites had most of their dealings with 



106 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the red men, who trusted him completely and 
never deceived him. "Never lie to an Indian 
and he'll not lie to you," was the advice he gave 
Clark, and proved its worth by long years of 
use. He was one of the big men of the coun- 
try, on friendly relations with William Henry 
Harrison and Anthony Wayne, and twice re- 
ceived the thanks of the president for valuable 
and distinguished service, through the secre- 
tary of state. General Knox. 

Many stories are told of him, one of which 
seems very like him. Once, while riding 
through the country, he came upon a group 
of men lamenting over a settler whose house 
had just been burned. He listened to the 
story and said, Indian fashion, "Me sorry;" 
then, drawing twenty dollars from his pocket, 
gave it to the distressed man, and, getting on 
his horse, said, "Me sorry no more." 

In later life he married a Miss Shannon, all 
of whose family had been killed by the Indians 
except two sisters and a brother. During his 
prosperous days he built a most elegant house 
in Vincennes. It had large parlors, with high 
ceilings, polished floors, inlaid with diamond- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA lOT 

shaped blocks of black walnut. These parlors 
were used by President William Henry Har- 
rison while his house was being built. 

He was so courteous and wise, so kindly and 
generous that, though he could no more than 
sign his last name, a noted traveler said, "He 
is the most distinguished person I have almost 
ever met." Another traveler told of his kind- 
ness : taking their party in his eight-oared boat 
and pressing upon them a complete outfit for 
striking fire as a parting gift. 

So long as he was not in need he did not 
press his claim on the government. Twice on 
meeting Mr. Pollock, he presented his drafts, 
only to be told there was no money and advised 
to hold them until better times. After an ill- 
ness of five years, his business had become so 
disarranged that he was unable to restore it 
and poverty came upon him. He became so 
hard pressed that he sold two small drafts at 
a discount, it is said, of eighty per cent., but 
still held the large one, amounting to eight 
thousand six hundred and sixteen dollars. 

Finally, twenty years after lending the 
money, so great was his need that he reluct- 



108 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

antly put the draft into the hands of agents 
for collection. Thus began the long struggle 
— years and years of eiFort by agents and law- 
yers and friends to get for this man his just 
due. 

Through some cruel carelessness the draft 
was lost until 1833, when it was found in a 
dust-covered bundle of papers in the attic of 
the Capitol at Richmond. 

In 1832 the people of Terra Haute invited 
him to attend their Fourth of July celebration. 
They were well repaid by the pleasure their 
enthusiastic reception gave the kind old man 
for whom their county was named. 

A few months before his death the Commit- 
tee of Revolutionary Claims for Virginia 
passed favorably on his claim, but it was too 
late, and Colonel Vigo died in poverty on 
March 22nd, 1836. He was given a military 
burial with the honors of war and during the 
evening cannon were fired above his grave. 

Would it be any wonder if he thought some- 
times of how, when he was young and strong 
and the land of his adoption weak, he gave his 
strength to it? When he was rich and it was 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 109 

poor he gave without stint of his means, while 
his pleas in his time of need were unheeded 
by the strong rich nation of later years. 

After his death his heirs took up the strug- 
gle. Seven times committees of the House re- 
ported favorably, twice Senate committees did 
the same, but it was not until 1875 that the 
claim was paid, with interest, which brought 
the sum to fifty thousand dollars. In his will, 
made shortly after his last visit to Terre Haute, 
Vigo left five hundred dollars to buy a bell for 
the Vigo County Court-house if the money 
was ever paid. 

A simple slab marked his grave at Vin- 
cennes, a rose trellis arched above it, until in 
1909 the Francis Vigo Chapter of the Daugh- 
ters of the American Revolution unveiled a 
monument in its stead. 

The following poem was inspired by the ac- 
count of Vigo's life and his present to the city 
of Terre Haute, where the school children say 
when it is time to go to school, "There goes 
Vigo." Under the bell is the inscription : 

"By His Will $500 of the Cost of this 



110 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Bell Were Presented by Francis Vigo to 
Vigo County, Indiana, A. D. 1887." 

"OLD VIGO" 

"What is the story ye tell. 

Old Vigo, Old Vigo?" 
"I have only the tongue of a bell. 

But ye know, ye know ! 
Look into the past if you can. 

Long ago, long ago. 
And know the heart of man. 

Ye know ! ye know ! 
Who planted the fruitful seed 
That gave me unto your need. 

Old Vigo, Old Vigor 

"Whom are ye calling all day. 

Old Vigo, Old Vigo?" 
"Justice ye oft drive away! 

Will she know? Will she know? 
For the sake of the great heart who died, 

Long ago, long ago . . . 
What we owed him too often denied. 

Ye know! ye know! 
I bid her come in! Greet her well! 
Oh, heed ye the song of your bell. 

Old Vigo, Old Vigo!" 

— By Frances Morrison, 1915. 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL ELM 
CORYDON 




THE CONSTmrnOlTAL ELM 

The Elm of Corydon to India^ta 

I am the Elm of Corydon, 

The Hoosier Ekn am I. 
For more than your one hundred years 

My arms IVe held on high. 
And as the dreams your fathers dreamed 

Do come true, one by one, 
I lift my head and call them mine. 

For you were born in Corydon. 

113 



114 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

You shall be first to forge ahead, 

First in scorn of fear ; 
Despise you not your heritage 

From sturdy pioneer! 
I stand, the Elm of Cor^^don, 

Stronger than at your birth. 
My arms are lifted to the sky, 

My roots are deep in Hoosier earth. 
Indianapolis. Frances Morrison. 

Here in Corydon we do not always speak 
of our dear old tree as ''The Constitutional 
Elm." Sometimes we call it the "Hoosier 
Elm," and there is a Chapter of the Daughters 
of the Revolution here by that name. But 
this is how our elm got the name that gives 
every person in the state a claim upon it. 

One warm sunny day, the tenth of June, in 
1816, when Indiana Territory was making 
ready to add the nineteenth star to the flag of 
our nation, a number of sturdy pioneers met 
under our elm tree. They had come, many 
of them, from miles away, over rough roads, 
through dense forests full of wild beasts and 
where lurking Indians were likely to spring 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 115 

upon them at any minute. Behind them they 
had left their cabin in the clearing to the care 
of the wife or mother, who was at all times a 
capable and ready helper. 

The purpose of the meeting that brought 
these men together was to draft a constitution 
for a new state and form plans for its govern- 
ment. The year before the settlers of Indiana, 
finding that they had the required number of 
w^hite inhabitants within the territory, peti- 
tioned Congress to order an election for repre- 
sentatives to form a state government. Next 
year the privilege was granted, and in June 
the elected commission met to form a constitu- 
tion. The grateful shade of a spreading elm 
tree on that warm June morning seemed very 
inviting to the pioneer legislators, and upon 
the invitation of one of their number, Daniel C. 
Lane, afterward state treasurer and in whose 
yard the tree stood, they at once gathered be- 
neath its branches. 

After twenty days of deliberation and dis- 
cussion these pioneers formed and adopted the 
constitution of Indiana. Mr. John B. Dillon 



116 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

greatly praises them for the work they did and 
says that they were men of common sense and 
patriotism; that they were familiar with the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence 
and of the Congressional Ordinance of 1787, 
and that the knowledge they brought to their 
task lightened the burden of the work. So 
this is why the people of Indiana call our tree 
the "Constitutional Elm" and think of the spot 
over which it stands as historic ground. 

No one knows the age of our elm. When 
the Constitutional Convention met under it a 
hundred years ago it must then have been a 
century old, and now as it stands in its maj- 
esty and beauty, its branches reach out one 
hundred and twenty-five feet from tip to tip, 
and its topmost boughs tower to a height of 
sixty feet. It is estimated that five thousand 
persons standing can be sheltered under it. As 
one looks upon it and ponders over the changes 
that have taken place in Indiana since the 
framers of our constitution met in its shade 
on that June day a hundred years ago, and 
thinks of the place that Indiana now occupies 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 117 

in the sisterhood of states in our Union, he 
marvels at the great number of people who 
have come and gone in the vicinity of this ven- 
erable tree, till it almost seems endowed with 
wisdom and he wishes it could speak, that it 
might tell some of the things that every one 
Welshes to know this Centennial year; he also 
pictures the primitive forest in which this tree 
with its companions as stately as itself grew 
through the long silence before the white man 
dared to cross the Ohio from the wilderness of 
Kentucky. 

The children of Indiana are no less proud 
of their Constitutional Elm than are children 
of JNIassachusetts of their Washington Elm, 
under which Washington took command of the 
American army in 1775, not quite half a cen- 
tury before the meeting that gave our tree its 
name. Out of love for our Constitutional Elm 
there are many elm groves being planted in 
Indiana this year as special celebration of the 
anniversary of our tree and a memorial to it. 

At the Centennial celebration in Corydon — 
June 1, 2, 3 — a part of the exercises was held 



118 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

under that "Old Elm," and there was also an- 
other elm tree named the "Centennial Elm," 
planted in the grounds near the old State 
House. 

Harrison County, the home of our elm, was 
formed nine years before this time, out of a 
tract of land that had been sold by Governor 
Harrison and named for him, and while our 
town does not bear his name, he christened it 
"Corydon." The town had been laid out, but 
not named. One night Governor Harrison was 
passing through, as he often did, to the gov- 
ernment office at JeiFersonville, and was the 
guest of his friend, Edward Smith. The 
daughter of the host, Miss Jennie Smith, was 
a sweet singer and had an old song-book, The 
Missouri Harmony, the only song-book in use 
at the time, from which she sang to her father's 
guests. Governor Harrison asked Miss Jen- 
nie to sing his favorite (the lament for the 
death of the young shepherd), Cory don. 
When she had finished Governor Harrison 
said, "Why not call your town 'Corydon'?" 
and that name has been borne by it ever since. 
iThe following is a verse from the song: 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 119 

"What sorrowful sounds do I hear. 

Move slowly along in the gale: 
How solemn they fall on my ear 

As softly they pass through the vale. 
Sweet Corydon's notes are all o'er. 

Now lonely he sleeps in the clay. 
His cheeks bloom with roses no more. 

Since death called his spirit away." 

No less famous than the Elm of Corydon 
is its old Capitol building. It is made of lime- 
stone and is two stories high, and though it has 
stood over a century, it looks as if it had a lease 
on life for two or three centuries to come. It 
has changed little in appearance outwardly, 
except the iron scales originally placed over it 
to symbolize justice have given way to a bell 
which calls the people to the administration of 
the justice symbolized by the scales. There is 
also on the outside a stairway that was not 
originally there. Upon going inside there are 
more marked changes. The second floor has 
been made into several rooms, and the two old 
fireplaces, one on the north and the other on 
the south side, which added so much toward 
the cheer and sociability of the early time, have 



120 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

been closed. Visitors usually stop at the first 
floor where the House of Representatives met, 
the Senate meeting up-stairs. When the leg- 
islature was not in session the upper rooms 
were occupied by the supreme, district and 
county courts. 

In speaking of this old building and the 
legislators who met here, a descendant of one 
of the founders of Corydon says: "The state 
legislature at Corydon brought together many 
bright and eloquent men who met not only to 
make the laws but to enjoy the social pleasures 
of the capital. The supreme court meeting 
here tried many cases and brought up matters 
for general discussion. The arguments were 
generally oral and the lawyers who took part 
in them from different parts of the state are 
still remembered for their ability. Many of 
them were college graduates." 

Another place of interest is the old stone 
Capitol Hotel, still standing on the New Al- 
bany pike one mile east of the town. This is 
the place where the members of the Constitu- 
tional Convention and subsequent legislators 
"put up." The building had been erected seven 
years before the state was made. It was a dis- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 121 

tinguished place with its genial landlord who 
provided entertainment for his guests and pas- 
turage for their horses. Near by was the 
spring-house through which cool and refresh- 
ing water constantly flowed. There was an 
air of gaiety about this old hotel in its best 
days, and one could meet in it people from 
all parts of the state and country. Here the 
*'belle" and the "gallant" engaged in the 
stately minuet and the story-teller held his spell 
over those listening to his recitals of romance 
or adventure. The singer was also cordially 
welcomed. The social life was largely colored 
w^ith southern traditions and manners and it 
was by no means "bare or ungentle." People 
made visits, gave parties, read books, danced, 
had pleasant conversations with their friends 
just as they do now and perhaps, being freer 
from other distractions, received more pleasure 
therefrom. 

The following entry in the journal of Miss 
Hariet Brandon, who came to Corydon in 
1816, is of interest: 

"In 1816 my father (Armstrong Brandon) 
moved from Ohio. We traveled by land to 



n2 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

Cincinnati and there, with Mr. Lodge's fam- 
ily, embarked in a small flatboat called a fam- 
ily boat. 

"From Cincinnati we reached Corydon in 
the fall. Corydon consisted of a few buildings 
including the Court House in which the legisla- 
ture met. . . . Enough trees had been felled 
to give room for the few buildings to be put 
up. All the rest was covered with forest trees ; 
still the little village in the woods was very 
gay and there were in the legislature a set of 
veiy fine-looking men. . . . Ladies were 
very scarce, and though I was only nine, I 
was often chosen as a partner in the dance for 
want of older ones. 

"Two years after we moved to Corydon, in 
1818, we made a visit to our friends in Ohio. 
We went from Corydon to Jeffersonville. 
. . . The boats that used to go up the Ohio 
were called barges and were propelled by oars 
and sometimes by sails when the wind was fa- 
vorable. The time taken to go from Louisville 
averaged two weeks. As yet there was not a 
steamboat in all the western waters." 

The following is a description of Miss Har- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 123 

iet Brandon written in a letter by a member 
of the Merrill family : 

"I have just seen the beautiful Hariet Bran- 
don, and you will like to hear how she was 
dressed. She wore a frock of white sprig-mull 
short in the skirt with short puffs for sleeves 
and long silk gloves to her shoulders. Her 
stockings were white with clocks, and she wore 
black slippers with black ribbons crossed back 
and forth around her ankles. Her dress was 
covered by a pelisse of bottle-green satin, lined 
with rose-colored satin. She carried a gray fur 
muiF as big as a barrel with a long boa to match 
around her neck. Her scoop hat was sky-blue 
satin with three white feathers standing up on 
top of it. Is not this a pretty costume, when 
one thinks of it as worn by a beautiful girl with 
soft brown eyes and entrancing dimples ? Cer- 
tainly it makes a charming picture." 

And this is the young girl who came to 
Corydon in 1818 and grew to womanhood 
there and in 1825 was married to Samuel Ju- 
dah, a brilliant lawyer of Vincennes. 



1S4 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

These evidences of the social life in the old 
capital of our state add greatly to our notion 
of the varying forces at work when Indiana 
was young. 



THE PIOXEERS OF INDIANA 




THE PIONEERS CAME IN ALL MANNER OF WAYS 

The pioneers, who came to Indiana to con- 
quer a wilderness and found a state, were not 
the first people on the soil. When they; came, 
the Mound Builders had long been shrouded 
in the mist of time. The Indian had claimed 
the land as his own hunting-ground and 
had no further care. The Coureur de BoiSj 
or wood ranger, thought nothing of a fixed 
abiding place; the fur-trader came and went 
to barter, and the missionary did not hope to 
own more than a place to lay his head. The 

127 



1S8 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

French who had gathered about the post at 
Vincennes lived in the quaint manner of their 
native land; but they did not show the coura- 
geous spirit of the sturdy pioneers who said 
good-by to home and friends in Virginia 
and Kentucky, in Carolina and Pennsylvania 
and Ohio, or even in New England and over 
the sea, and came to brave dangers from wild 
beasts and hostile Indians. In the veins of 
many of these pioneers coursed the blood of 
those that had made us a nation in '76. Here 
the spirit of the Houndhead and the Cavalier 
met to undertake the task of clearing forests, 
of cutting traces and roads, of draining 
swamps, building houses, and planting the 
church and the school for their children. Many 
of them also came to avoid the evils of slavery 
in the section in which they lived. These were 
great undertakings, and only the brave and 
the strong got through. 

Nature seemed to befriend them by provid- 
ing plenty of game in the forests and fish in 
the streams. In the spring and the fall clouds 
of geese and ducks and pigeons passed over. 
Turkeys were abundant. For fruit there were 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 129 

wild plums, the crab-apple, wild gooseberries, 
wild raspberries and blackberries, besides nuts 
of many kinds. The question of food was not 
so great as how to stand the danger and the 
loneliness, and the sickness w^hicli was likely 
to attack them. 

The first settlements in the state were made 
along the Wabash and Ohio Rivers, w^hile the 
middle and northern portions were still occu- 
pied by the Indians, mostly the Miami and 
Delaware tribes. The Yincennes settlement 
was first in point of time, though the exact 
dates are still matters of question. In 1796 
John and James Defour came to the banks of 
the Ohio where the town of Yevay now stands 
to cultivate the vine, and found a colony like 
the one they left in canton Vaud in Switzer- 
land. They bought two thousand five hundred 
and sixty acres from Congress, named the town 
Vevay and the county Switzerland. Their fam- 
ilies, however, did not come till later. Aurora, 
Rising Sun, Lawrenceburg, Brookville and 
Richmond were also early settlements. In 
the year that Indiana became a state the land 
office at Vincennes sold fifteen hundred tracts. 



130 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

and in similar offices opened at iBrookville, 
Crawfordsville and JeiFersonville a remark- 
able business was done. 

The pioneers came in all manner of ways. 
Some rode on horseback, others in two-wheeled 
carts or wooden-wheeled wagons drawn by 
oxen. Sometimes you would see a young hus- 
band with a bundle of clothing coming cheerily 
afoot beside his wife. Wherever the streams 
would float them, flatboats were greatly used 
for incoming settlers. The Conestoga wagon, 
or prairie schooner, as it was often called, 
seemed to be the favorite vehicle. It was 
drawn by four horses bedecked with bells, and 
made quite a gay appearance with its retinue 
of boys driving the cattle and the sheep and 
hogs. A pioneer says, "You should have seen 
the movers ^fter the middle of the state was 
opened up for settlement. Sometimes forty 
wagons would pass in a day and the moving 
lights at night made it look like a town. Peo- 
ple were so varied in the choice of places for 
the home. Some of my friends would seek the 
branch wherever they could find a good vein 
of water. Others would place their cabin on 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 131 

a high hill where they could see further and 
claimed to have better air. One of my brothers 
went to the open prairie while my cousin said 
he could not live out of the timber." 

A grandmother has left the following ac- 
count of her departure from North Carolina: 
*'I well remember our leaving Carolina in 1814. 
Our household goods were packed in a large 
blue-bedded wagon drawn by four horses with 
bells on their hames ; for the family there was 
a buggy and a saddle-horse to change and ride 
at pleasure. 

''We drove out of our lovely yard one au- 
tumn morning for the last time. The leaves 
were beginning to turn and rustle at our feet; 
as we passed down the lane all stopped and 
looked back. In the background were the 
mountains. In the thrifty young orchard every 
tree was bending with a crop of red apples; 
the cotton fields were white. My mother sat 
in the buggy holding her little two-year-old 
son. I did not understand till long afterward 
the depth of sorrow felt by my parents at this 
tearful leavetaking. . . . We were five 
weeks coming, and we children had a new life 



132 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

in seeing rivers and mountains and towns. We 
were nearly a whole day climbing the Blue 
Ridge Mountains. In the evening we began 
to descend. We had traveled miles without 
meeting a human being or passing any habita- 
tion. At last we came to the house of Samuel 
Pike, an old man who lived alone. We stayed 
all night with him; he had killed a bear that 
day and we bought some of the meat for break- 
fast. When morning came, lo ! the three dogs 
which were of our company to watch the wag- 
ons, had eaten it up. How well I remember 
the first buckeyes I ever saw ; their prickly balls 
were lying on the rich black land of the Kanawa 
Valley and our aprons were soon full. . . . 
A new log house had been erected to receive us 
north of the Ohio River, and when near there 
we stopped at the house of a neighbor to bor- 
row coals for kindling a fire on the new 
hearth." 

The pioneer lost no time in building a house 
when the site was chosen. The ax with which 
he cleared the land and made logs ready for 
the house, and the gun with which he brought 
down the game for the table and protected the 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 133 

family at all times, were the two things with- 
out which he could not have lived in the wil- 
derness of early Indiana. Because these were 
so necessary to the pioneer, people are coming 
to look upon them as symbols of courage and 
manliness belonging to the hero frontiersmen 
of the state and the nation. 

The following song sung at the New Har- 
mony Centennial in 1914, shows how the pres- 
ent generation looks upon the pioneer father. 



THE PIONEER 



I sing to thee, O pioneer! 
Whose manly strength without a fear, 
And purpose firm in Heaven's sight. 
Gives thee a place by crested knight. 
Or feudal lord o'er countryside. 

Thou art the nation's honest pride ! 



II 



Thy symbol, O brave pioneer ! 

Is woodman's axe forests to clear. 



134 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

And cabins raise in regions wild 
For sake of fireside, wife and child 
And country dear fast to upbuild. 

Now with thy praise our hearts are filled ! 

Ill 

O noble, noble pioneer! 
We give thee honor now and here. 
In this, our Middle West, a part. 
Thanks come to thee from every heart. 
In words of love and hope and cheer. 
All hail! Our noble pioneer! 

The pioneer fathers of Indiana and of the 
New World belong in a distinctive class ; with- 
out them there would have been no Indiana, 
no United States, no enduring civilization. 
They are truly called the "Nation-builders." 

The pioneer mother worked side by side with 
the pioneer father. In addition, her days were 
lengthened by the care required in rearing the 
family and nursing the sick through the long 
fevers. Her anxiety for the safety of her 
family was a great strain upon her. She often 
went through the tragedy of seeing her chil- 
dren carried off, or killed by the tomahawk 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 135 

of the ruthless red men. When the father 
was called out suddenly to help protect the 
community from the Indians, she has been 
known to take her children out of the house 
and sleep on the leaves alongside of a large 
fallen tree, saying, "We are safer here: if the 
Indians attack us in the night they will burn or 
surround the cabin and take us all. Here some 
of us may escape." And she kept her courage 
and slept under the stars. 

One man tells how his mother carried the 
baby in one arm and led him on her other side 
through the deep dangerous woods every morn- 
ing to the far-away school, and came after 
him every evening. JMiss Mary Hanna Krout 
rejoices that she has lived to do honor to the 
pioneer women in INIontgomery, her own 
county. She speaks of the passing of the 
spinning-wheel and its replacement by the con- 
veniences of the modern home. But she 
thinks these women excelled in intelligence, 
spirituality and an insight that was wisdom. 
It should be added that the pioneer mother 
can not be entirely explained by the symbols 
of the spinning-wheel or the log cabin, much 



136 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

as they are to us. These were the instruments 
through which her mighty courage and love 
worked for the good of her family and com- 
munity. One must also think of her in connec- 
tion with the great things of the world, for she 
belonged in the company of the brave and 
the true. She had what we recognize in the 
Sistine Madonna, in Wagner's Pilgrims' 
Chorus, in the sibyls and prophets of Michael 
Angelo. She was spiritually related to Prome- 
theus, to Christopher Columbus, and to Arnold 
von Winkelreid. Like Joan of Arc, she heard 
and obeyed the voices as the "vision of a better 
country" came to her in the wilderness. 

The home education of the pioneer children 
made of them strong men and women. They 
had duties and helped to carry on the family. 
Their notions of life were wholesome. All co- 
operated, and the work of the boys and the 
girls was often the same. A pioneer daughter 
writes of the work shared in common by the 
boys and girls in the pioneer home. *'The girls 
often went to mill when there were no sons to 
go. They helped in the care for the animals 
and the planting and the reaping of the grain. 



DNCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 137 

The daughter also helped the mother in all the 
household work, which was a very great task." 
Perhaps the pioneer home of which every 
boy and girl in Indiana knows best is one in 
Spencer County. The cabin of this home was 
not unlike many in the early time. All traces 
of it are gone ; a schoolhouse stands in the yard 
near the site ; a little town has grown up around 
it. You can stand in the yard and look into 
the burying-ground where the pioneer mother 
of this family was laid, and which is now owned 
and cared for by the state of Indiana. People 
go to the little town and look everywhere for 
some reminder of the early time to carry back. 
A man actually found in one of the ditches 
there a ring made of Cannel coal, with the 
letters T. L. carved on it. All this interest in 
the place is because this cabin was the home of 
one of the greatest men America has produced, 
Abraham Lincoln. Upon the hearth of this 
home he lay in the evenings and worked his 
"sums" or read by the light of the blazing fire; 
here after going to bed at night he thought 
over the things he had seen and heard during 
the day and made them into words of his own. 



138 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

It was from this pioneer home that the young 
Lincoln went on a flathoat to New Orleans 
and first learned the evils of the slavery which 
he annulled in the great proclamation in 1863. 
One of the touching pictures of young pioneer 
Lincoln is the longing he had to have some 
sort of funeral for his mother, who was laid 
away without ceremony; and how, after time 
had elapsed, a minister was finally secured to 
come and preach the sermon. This young Lin- 
coln was a dreamer; the log cabin could not 
bound his imagination nor satisfy his thirst for 
knowledge and life. 

The school education of the pioneer children 
varied according to the locality in which they 
lived. Where the country was densely wooded 
and the homes were far apart, the children 
were at first taught by their parents or by a 
teacher who went from house to house where 
he often sat on one end of a long forestick in 
the great fireplace, while the children sat on the 
other and sang their "Ba-ba, be-be, bi-bit-i-bi, 
Bo-bo-bit-i-bi-bo, bu-bu-bit-i-bi-bo-bu," and so 
on. When the a, b, c's were sung they would 
sin^ the geography lesson, or the multiplica- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 139 

tion table if the pupils were far enough ad- 
vanced. The earliest schools were pay schools. 
The teachers boarded around and often took 
in return for tuition such things as the patrons 
had for sale. Women teachers were not at first 
considered and only men were thought to be 
competent to manage boys. While some of 
the early teachers were ignorant, highly edu- 
cated men soon came to the state. One teacher 
whose fame still lives on in the minds of the 
children of those who were his pupils, was John 
I. Morrison, of Salem. He started there in 
the early days first, a grammar-school, then a 
seminary and then an institute. Students came 
to Salem schools from north, south, east and 
west, including eight states. Morrison was 
called the "Hoosier Arnold," and some of the 
most distinguished men of Indiana were his 
pupils. One of his teachers brought to Salem 
her own piano and gave instruction daily to 
the young women, training them in the accom- 
plishments as well as in the solid subjects. 

When the log schoolliouse was built, it, too, 
was often the home of a real school. There 
were many people of the last generation whq 



140 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

were made ready for college within these build- 
ings where they sat on puncheon floors, with 
their faces to the wall and studied or wrote in 
their copy-books by light admitted through 
greased paper. Here they studied the classics 
and learned by heart the myths and notes in 
the back of the book. On Friday afternoons 
they spoke before the school such pieces as 
Breathes There the Man, Marco Bozzarris, 
Spartacus to the Gladiators, and like selec- 
tions which sowed the seeds of courage and 
patriotism in the minds of the smallest as well 
as of the largest pupils in the school. Debates 
were also had and were then, as they are now, 
a sharpener of the wits. On Saturday fore- 
noons these speakers would go surveying with 
their teacher and make practical application of 
the higher mathematics studied. 

The child in the pioneer school formed an 
intimate acquaintance with nature as he walked 
over the long wooded paths. He became fa- 
miliar with the dangers that might befall him 
and often had his saplings picked out for climb- 
ing in case he should be attacked by some wild 
animal. He learned the names of the forest 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 141 

trees and wild flowers; he could tell the dif- 
ferent birds from their call and knew where 
to find their nests. During the day he brought 
cool water from the spring and passed it to 
his mates who drank it from a yellow gourd. 
At noon the boys played ball and leap-frog; 
the girls jumped the rope or made playhoiises 
in the fence corners, out of pretty moss and 
bark. Both boys and girls played together 
"London Town," "Black Man," or "Wolf" 
and "Anthony Over." Unruly urchins would 
be punished by having to sit with pointed caps 
on their heads on a stool called "The Dunce 
Block." One pioneer tells of a gray boulder 
that was in the earth of her schoolroom floor; 
it was called "The Old Mare," and the teacher 
had some boy riding it most of the time. In 
the afternoon the teacher would give the word, 
"Say out your books," and the whole school 
would begin to scream out the lessons at the 
top of the voice. Sometimes the noise could 
be heard for a great distance. A very common 
custom in the early time was to make the 
teacher treat the school at Christmas or on 
holidays, and if he did not, he was taken to the 



in ONCE UPON :a: time in Indiana 

pond or a near-by stream and ducked till he 
consented. The friendships formed in the pi- 
oneer school were lasting, and the wonder is 
not that there were so few educational ad- 
vantages in pioneer times in Indiana, but that 
there were so many, when one thinks of the 
hardships which the parents went through. 

The household arts were not neglected in 
pioneer days. The fathers not only built the 
house, but as time passed, replaced the first rude 
furniture by other pieces that were well made 
and handsome. The good material, the fine 
lines, and the honest workmanship of the four- 
poster beds, sideboards, chests of drawers and 
tables, made out of the beautiful wood of the 
wild cherry and black walnut of Indiana, by 
the pioneer cabinet-makers of the state, are 
to-day prized treasures. One can see in any 
well-equipped department store, replicas of 
these pieces that have outlived later styles and 
are still admired for their art value. There are 
to-day in Rockport, Indiana, several pieces of 
colonial furniture made by the cabinet-maker, 
Thomas Lincoln, father of Abraham Lincoln. 

After the plearing was made, Jhq proj^s? 



ONCE UPON ^A TIME IN INDIANA! 143 

started, and more time was at their command, 
the pioneer mother and her daughter satisfied 
their artistic instinct by weaving snowballs and 
roses, cathedral windows and chariot wheels, 
lover's knots, the pine tree and the rising sun, 
besides other beautiful designs, in their double 
coverlets. There stands a cabin on the Wabash 
where Sarah La Tourette and her father wove 
hundreds of these coverlets for the people of 
Indiana and Illinois in the early time. The 
wearing linsey made by the pioneer mother was 
in artistic plaids, home colored ; the snowy white 
spreads were woven in the honeycomb pattern 
and had deep fringe around the border. One 
mother raveled up a black satin dress brought 
from the old home, carded it with wool, spun 
and wove it into a beautiful cloth out of which 
she made her husband a dress-suit with knee 
breeches trimmed with silver buckles. Beau- 
tiful quilts were a pride at that time and the 
stitched-on tulips and flowers were inlaid with 
the finest quilting in feathers and shells, some- 
times counting eleven stitches to the inch. It 
was a great occasion when one of these products 
of household art was brought out to adorn the 



144* ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

bed in which an honored guest was to sleep. 
The pioneer daughter worked samplers which 
have come down to us; she also embroidered 
islet patterns in her underdress while her 
mother darned and told of the life back in the 
old Virginia home or repeated snatches of some 
old English ballad, like Lord Lovellj which 
she had brought to the wilderness with her. 
As the daughter stitched and listened, these 
things set her to musing and brought visions 
of what might come to her in pioneer Indiana. 
The gardens of pioneer times were often ex- 
amples of good taste. They were generally; 
made square with a walk running at right an- 
gles through the center. Along either side of 
the walks were beds in which grew jonquils, 
snowdrops, sweet grass pinks and bergamot, 
cinnamon roses, hollyhocks and "pinies," as 
they were then called. There were also beds of 
tansy, camomile, old man, sweet balm, mint 
and rue. No garden was without a lilac bush 
and a snowball tree in which the friendly birds 
nested and sang their love-songs. In the yards 
there were native cedar trees often trimmed 
in fanciful shapes like sugar loaves and steepled 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 145 

houses, and there clambered up the porch eg- 
lantine and wild cucumber vines. The graceful 
asparagus served as much for filling the open 
fireplace in the summer as it did for food, and 
pretty red berries from the wood adorned the 
mantel-piece. Had you gone into one of these 
well-ordered pioneer homes you would have 
felt a sense of peace at the simplicity of the 
taste and have enjoyed the fragrance of the 
cleanliness which characterized the place. 

The hospitality among the pioneers was very 
marked and very sincere. " 'Light and come 
in," was the usual greeting to whoever rode to 
the door. People living along the road enter- 
tained the traveler who was overtaken by the 
dark. Taverns had a picturesque sign hanging 
from the door or front along the roadside. The 
prices were very modest. A room with fire for 
movers to cook by, milk for the children and 
hay for the horses, were twenty-five cents. If 
immigrants were poor, nothing was charged. 
If a traveler on horseback got dinner and had 
his horse fed it was a dime. Neighbors often 
("dropped in" to sit till bedtime, and there is 
scarcely a pioneer home which can not boast 



146 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

of some noted guest. Mr. Thomas James de la 
Hunt tells in his history of Perry County of 
Lafayette's stay one night at the pioneer cabin 
of James Cavender in 1825; he says it is the 
only home in Indiana in which the noted 
Frenchman spent the night, though he was 
afterward a guest in the state. Lafayette was 
on his way from Nashville, Tennessee, when 
the boat on which he was traveling struck a 
ledge near Rock Island, Indiana, and almost 
immediately sank. Lafayette fell into the 
water, but fortunately he could swim and no 
harm was done except the loss of eight thou- 
sand dollars and his baggage. The news 
spread and the next morning people came for 
miles around to shake the hands of the man 
who had done so much to help America. One 
little boy who walked nine miles to greet the 
great Frenchman was prouder of it when he 
was grown than he was to sit in the Indiana 
legislature. 

The festivities of the early days in Indiana 
were, as they are now, based on the interests 
of the community which then grew out of the 
industrial life. The neighbors helped one an- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 147 

other in the exchange of work which they made 
interesting" by some contest in connection with 
it, and which ended in a feast with its attend- 
ant gaieties. Aside from weddings, the most 
common occasions were the log rolling, the 
house raising, the corn husking, and the quilt- 
ing. When the work was done, the prizes 
awarded and the feasting was over, the younger 
people had what was called a "play-party." 
In this the games were usually accompanied 
with movements that approached the dance. 
Sometimes there was a "fiddler," but it was 
common for the participants to sing some bal- 
lad in unison to the movement of the game, 
repeating the stanza till the game came to an 
end. There seems to be no end to the number 
of songs thus used. One collector said that 
without effort he had gathered eighty. Among 
the favorites in Indiana are songs that have 
many variants. The ballad Skiptumaloo is one 
of this kind. 

(1) "Just from Shiloh, Skiptumaloo, 
Just from Shiloh, Skiptumaloo, 
Just from Shiloh, Skiptumaloo, 
Skiptumaloo, my darling." 



148 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

(2) *'IVe lost my partner, what shall I do? 
I've lost my partner, what shall I do? 
I've lost my partner, what shall I do? 
Skip to me, Lou, my darling!" 

Another Indiana game song said to be very 
similar in tune is : 

'*Keep one window tidy-oh. 
Keep two windows tidy-oh. 
Keep three windows tidy-oh. 

Jingle at the window tidy-oh! 

Jingle at the window tidy-oh !" 

The following is said to be like the Kirginia 
Reel: 

"Do ce do, to your best liking. 
Do ce do, to your best liking. 
Do ce do, to your best liking. 
And swing your love so handy!" 

"Nelly Gray has always been popular and 
IS now used in play-parties over the West. 
Old 'Dan Tucker was an early favorite. 
Weevilly Wheat and OatSj Peas^ Beans and 
Barley are greatly used to-day. 

It was common for the father and the mother 



DNCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 149 

to sing snatches of the songs of the old place 
from which they came. A pioneer grand- 
daughter sent the following, saying: "My 
grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier and 
taught the following to my mother: 

"the patriot^s appeai; 
"(1776): 

" \Then join hand in hand, brave Americans 

all. 
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall ; 
In so righteous a cause we may hope to succeed. 
For Heaven approves every generous deed.' " 

Another pioneer writes: "Napoleon Bona- 
parte was the hero of the day in my youth. 
When he was banished, it took months to get 
the news across the ocean and then it would 
travel slowly to us in the western wilds. His 
glory and his defeat furnished themes for the 
popular songs of the time, as JLouise^ She 
Mourns hy the Isle of St. Helena, and The 
'Billows.'' 

The pioneers were a self-governing people 
and united for protection against the Indians. 



150 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

They were so busy with their work that they 
left the making of the laws with the men 
elected for the purpose. A question that ran 
high was that of slavery. One would hardly 
believe that there was a strong fight about 
slavery on the soil of our free Indiana, the 
place which the fathers dedicated to freedom 
in 1787; but history will tell you that when 
the lawmakers met to make the constitution 
of our state, there were many slaves in In- 
diana, and some of its people were willing to 
recognize the owning of slaves and to uphold 
the rights of the southern owners to come to 
Indiana and capture the runaways from their 
masters. 

All religious denominations flourished in In- 
diana from the start. After the French mis- 
sionaries, the Baptists came first. One of the 
most familiar figures was that of the Methodist 
circuit-rider, who stopped as he rode by, took 
the family Bible from the stand, had prayers, 
gave a word of cheer and went on to the next 
place. The Quakers, by their protest for free- 
dom, rendered an infinite service to the forma- 
tion of the state. There were also Protestant 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 151 

missionaries to the Indians. Like the first 
schools, the first churches were held in the home 
in the winter. In the summer the groves were 
used. But the church spire was soon seen 
pointing upward in every town in Indiana as 
a witness that man can not live by bread alone. 
Even a slight glance at pioneer times will 
show that industry, religion, patriotism and 
education with all that belong to them were 
the foundation stones upon which our com- 
monwealth M^as builded by the fathers who 
came a hundred years ago to the wilderness of 
Indiana. 



WHAT BROUGHT ABEL, LOMAX 

AND HIS SERVANTS TO 

INDIANA 




I BELIE^TE THEY ARE COMIXG HERE 



Abei; Lomax, a sturdy Quaker pioneer, 
pame from North Carolina to Wayne County 
soon after Indiana was made a state. He 
founded here a home, reared a family and 
served in the Indiana legislature for nine 
years (1823 to 1832) , always advocating there 
the high principles that had brought him from 
the land of slavery., 

The servants, Jake and Dike, came to In- 
diana some years later than their master, Abel 
Lomax. They did not come as pioneers, to 

155 



156 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

cut down trees, nor to build a cabin nor found 
a home, as their master had done. They came 
in obedience to a mighty love that led them 
to follow their young mistress, Elizabeth Lo- 
max, at whose marriage in North Carolina they 
had been sent by her father, Mr. Ladd, as 
house servants. Jake and Dike knew nothing 
of the curiosity that we have about where our 
ancestors came from far back; they were con- 
tented to speak of *^01e Mars" and "Ole Miss'* 
and "the ole home in Caroliny" as the begin- 
ning and end of knowledge. Nobody knew 
exactly how old this couple were when they 
came to Wayne County, Indiana, but Dike's 
white turban covered a head of silver-gray hair 
and her kerchief rested on bent shoulders. Jake, 
I am told, seemed older than Dike from the 
furrows on his brow and the deep lines around 
his eyes. 

But age is no bar to happiness, and they 
were surely happy, for had they not come eight 
hundred miles (as the old trails went) a free 
man and a free woman. And, incredible as it 
may seem, and it does seem so, they had walked 
all the? w^ay from North Carolina to Indiana., 



ONCE UPON 'A TIME IN INDIANA 157 

No one could find out just how long it took 
them to make the journey, but the usual time 
for foot travelers was from six weeks to two 
months for such a distance. They were often 
heard to speak of walking twenty miles a day. 
As to how they fared along the way was 
also not clear; but in bits of broken conversa- 
tion now and then, they frequently referred 
to the berries on the bushes and the squirrels 
in the wood, and to the kind people w^ho often 
let them ride for a little way in a cart or wagon, 
and of others who let them pass on, after seeing 
their "free papers." These papers were their 
safeguards by night and day, and they kept 
them pinned next to their hearts as they jour- 
neyed, well knowing the toil it had taken to 
pay for them. No passports, nowadays, ever 
cost what these contented souls paid for theirs. 
They had worked many years before they 
began to "buy themselves," as it is called. This 
means that a slave could, by his master's con- 
sent, hire out and when he had saved as much 
money as he would sell for, he could pay that 
sum to his master and receive his "free papers," 
showing he had bought himself. 



158 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

The young Quaker, Abel Lomax, and his 
lovely southern wife, Elizabeth, had spent the 
early years of their married life on the planta- 
tion of Mr. Ladd, the father of Mrs. Lomax, 
in great happiness except for one thing, and 
that was slavery. Not that they had seen the 
ill effects of it in their own home, where Jake 
and Dilce worked unstintedly and happily in 
the spirit of love, with no thought of self, and 
without any knowledge that the master and 
mistress were laying aside money for them to 
buy themselves. Nor was there to be seen other 
than the patriarchal spirit of slavery in the 
home of Mr. Ladd. 

But Abel and Elizabeth had been to the 
market place and had looked upon the slave 
mother on the auction block and heard her elo- 
quent cries, begging some one to buy her child 
along with her so they would not be separated 
forever ; they knew of the workers in the field, 
whose backs smarted under the lash of the slave 
driver's whip, and it had become a subject of 
conversation night and day, as they tried to 
see it in all its lights, each time looking upon 
it as a more terrible thing. And adding an 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 159 

element of deeper pathos to the situation were 
Jake's and Dike's growing happiness day by 
day and wishing for nothing they did not have. 

Abel would say, "Elizabeth, this is all wrong; 
we can not stay here and bring up our children 
right, where such things exist." Elizabeth 
would answer, "Yes, I've come to see it as you 
do, Abel, and I'm ready to follow you wherever 
you go." Finally, one bright June Sunday, 
as they came out of the Quaker meeting-house, 
Abel said to Elizabeth, "We must take our 
stand to-day if we expect to live up to the best 
we know." Elizabeth said, "I am willing." 
Then, to the astonishment of their friends and 
the grief of Elizabeth's parents, Abel Lomax 
declared his intention to seek a home in the 
free state of Indiana. Elizabeth said, "Yes, 
we've talked it over many times ; it's no sudden 
notion; I'm ready to go with Abel anywhere 
and to go now." 

The plans for going to Indiana were soon 
made, but there were Jake and Dike. What 
would become of them? While they had been 
sent as house servants by Elizabeth's father, 
they had not been gifts ; had they been, it would 



160 ONCE UPON 'X TIME IN INDIANA 

have been a simple matter to have brought 
them along free. Finally Elizabeth told her 
father that she and Abel had already started 
Jake and Dilce toward buying themselves and 
that if he would let the wages continue they 
would come back from Indiana and see to the 
making out of the free papers. The father 
consented and now the way seemed clear for 
the departure, when Dilce declared she could 
not see why she should not go along with Miss 
Elizabeth. [She moaned for days, saying, 
"You shoahly ain't a goin* way off and leave 
me heah; me thet's kered fer ye all yer born 
days, and nussed you thoo sickness, and shooed 
you to sleep in my ahms, and trotted you on 
my knee. No, dis can't be; Dilce hab to go 
wid ye ; shoah she do." 

This was kept up till Elizabeth at last suc- 
ceeded in showing Dilce how matters were, and 
that she could buy her freedom and then come 
to Indiana. So the partings were said and 
Abel Lomax came to Indiana with his family 
and lived here in the way already told at the 
beginning of this story. 

When the time came round for the making 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 161 

out of the free papers of Jake and Dilce, Abel 
Lomax, reluctantly leaving Elizabeth behind, 
rode back on horseback to North Carolina to 
keep his word with his faithful servants. Eliza- 
beth's father had the papers made out when 
Abel reached there and Jake and Dilce were 
living happily in the old home, forgetful of the 
great desire they had so strongly expressed to 
go with "Miss Elizabeth" to Indiana at their 
parting. Abel bade them, as he thought, a 
final farewell and came back to Indiana, where 
he and Elizabeth had the satisfaction of having 
done the best they could under the circum- 
stances. 

Another year went by in the Indiana home, 
where frequent mention continued to be made 
of Jake and Dilce, whose names were really 
household words. The children would often 
gather around their mother's knee and ask for 
stories of Jake and Dilce back in the Carolina 
home. 

One bright summer day Sarah Lomax came 
bounding into the house, exclaiming, "Mother, 
mother! Come and see! There is the funniest 
jcouple coming up the lane you ever saw ; each 



162 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

has a bundle tied up in a rag, and I believe they 
are coming here.'* 

Mrs. Lomax went to the door with Sarah, 
and she, too, wondered who it could be coming 
straight up to the gate and opening it to come 
in. Just then she heard a voice calling out, 
"Thaah she is! Bless her dear heart! Howdy- 
do, honey!" The voice made the appeal of the 
olden time and in a minute Elizabeth Lomax 
was grasped by the outstretched arms that had 
opened to hold her so often when she was a 
child. The meeting in Indiana brought as 
many tears as had the parting in North Caro- 
lina years before. Dilce turned from Eliza- 
beth to Sarah and, looking at her steadily for 
a moment, said : * 'Honey, how youse growed ! 
But I'd a knowed you anywhere ; you looks moa 
like ole ]\Iars's people wid ye blue eyes and 
dark hair and so straight; jes like 'em shoah!" 

Upon entering the house it was more touch- 
ing. Dilce saw in the cradle a sleeping child, 
whose pale face and quick breath told her at a 
glance of its sickness. Without a word she 
bent over it for a while and then, as if afraid 
to wake it, she stepped to the side of Elizabeth 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 163 

and whispered, "Honey, now I know why- 
God's been so good to Dilce to bring her to 
dis chile. He knowed I was needed heah." 

Jake had in the meantime stood just inside 
the door, not knowing what to say or do. Mrs. 
Lomax went to the kitchen for a minute and 
Dilce again bent over the cradle, swaying to 
and fro in silence, till Mrs. Lomax beckoned 
to her to come out where she was, and began 
talking to her, saying: "Dilce, you are just 
as free as I am, now." Dilce said, "Chile, 
don't Dilce know dat ? Hain't she been showin' 
dese free papers all de way comin' from Caro- 
liny? Shoah Ise free!" Immediately she began 
to bring out the "free papers," saying to Eliza- 
beth, "Jest look at 'em yourse'f. But you ain't 
goin' to leave Dilce ag'in. We come all de way 
from Caroliny to be wid ye." Elizabeth said, 
"We're glad you came." Dilce then pointed 
to the cradle holding the sleeping child, and 
said: "Dese ole ahms have been empty long 
time waitin' for dat chile to kere for. Now I'm 
heah! Ise goin' to stay." 

By and by a cabin was built for Jake and 
Dilce in the orchard of Mrs. Lomax. Here 



164 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the old couple worked as they had always done, 
forgetful of self and even not knowing how 
much their wages came to. But the kind 
Quakers kept the accounts, and when enough 
had been saved to buy a little home of their own 
near by, Jake and Dike could hardly under- 
stand what it meant to own land and a little 
house. They lived the rest of their days in their 
own home till in the fulness of years, like 
Baucis and Philemon, they passed away near 
the same time and were buried in the free soil 
of Indiana in land owned by themselves. 

The mighty love that made these humble 
servants walk eight hundred miles to see the one 
whom they had cared for as a child and had 
served as a bride, and now with whom at the 
end of their lives they counted the highest hap- 
piness to be with, and the high principles that 
made Abel and Elizabeth Lomax come to the 
land of freedom and here live up to the highest 
demands made of them, are only examples of 
the precious heritage of spiritual wealth that 
Indiana carries into the new centennial year 
1916. 



NEW HARMONY AND ITS TWO 
SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS 




HARMOKY HALL AI^D CHURCH AT NEW HAEMOKY 



The story of iTfew Harmony reads like a 
romance. The two successive social experi- 
ments tried there were very different, though 
the founder of each came into the wilderness 
of Indiana to carry out his ideas for the better- 
ment of mankind. 

The jSrst colony to come was that led by 
George Rapp, a German peasant, who, with a 
hundred strong men from his community at 



168 ONCE UPON :A: time in INDIANA 

Harmonie, in Pennsylvania, landed on the 
banks of the Wabash about fifty miles above 
its mouth, in the year 1814}. Their immediate 
purpose in coming was to make ready homes 
for the families that were to follow the next 
year, from the parent community. These men 
reached Indiana in the glad month of June 
when the birds were singing and the foliage 
was dense and green. The first night they 
slept under a great tree, known thereafter as 
the "Rapp oak." The next morning they 
shouldered their axes and started to fell the 
giant trees for the houses they had come to 
build. 

Ten years before this, George Rapp and 
his community had come from Wiirtemburg, 
Germany, to America, because it was the land 
of the free. They were led by the same desire 
that brought the Pilgrim Fathers to Plymouth 
in 1620 — the desire to worship God as they 
saw fit. George Rapp also wanted to show 
how men could live and work and share the 
profits of their labor in brotherly love. Later 
when they became prosperous, in what they 
called their "palmy days," they cheerfully 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA l169: 

burned the book which recorded the amount 
put into the society by each member upon en- 
tering, and thereafter counted all equal sharers 
in the profits and property- 

The Rappites were not the first people to 
come to this region. The land near New Har- 
mony had been surveyed by Ziba Foote in 
1806; John Gresham is said to have entered 
land there in 1807; the Old Salt Trail crossed 
the Wabash just below and two years before 
the Rappites came, John Warrick had built the 
first grist mill at the "cut-ofF." The Wabash 
River had long been known as the great high- 
way of travel into the interior of Indiana to 
the northeast and the southwest. Up and down 
this stream the French missionaries carried 
their message of good tidings to the Indians. 
The fur-traders were at home on its banks, 
where they bartered with the Indians, and the 
white man on his way to found the pioneer 
home had gone on this river into the wilder- 
ness. The Indian canoes were also to be seen 
on the Wabash at all times and the waters 
were said to have been stained with the blood 
of warring tribes, Indiana had before thi$ 



170 ONCE UPON :a: time in INDIANA 

passed under the rule of three flags: first the 
French held sway, then the British and now the 
Rappites came under the American flag, which 
is to float as long as civilization lasts. 

During the year 1814, the Rappite men had 
accomplished great results; they had built 
houses, cleared land, planted crops and made 
ready a cheerful prospect to greet the families 
arriving in the spring of 1815. They named 
the new home in Indiana, Harmonic, after the 
one they had left in Pennsylvania. Their com- 
munity was indeed a model of thrift and in- 
dustry. It was governed wholly by George 
Rapp. All members had the same religion 
and worshiped the same way. Music was one 
of the joys of the society, and a fine band play- 
ing inspiring airs preceded the workers to and 
from the fields every day. Each morning the 
watchman went through the town from mid- 
night till three o'clock, calling out the cry to 
an old air, sung in a manly voice: 

"Hark unto me all ye people — ^ 
Twelve o'clock sounds from the steeple : 



DNCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 171 

Twelve gates bar the city of gold ; 
Blessed is he who enters the fold. 
Twelve strikes — all's well!" 

{Translated hy Mr. John Duss,) 

Many of the houses built by the Rappites 
have stood for a hundred years and indeed they 
seem to have been built for all time. If you 
should go to New Harmony to-day, you would 
likely stop at the ''Tavern," known in Rappite 
times as "Rooming House No. 3." They 
called these houses by numbers, 1, 2, 3, and so 
on. This tavern was built in 1823, and the 
roof has been changed in consequence of fire, 
a porch has been added on the side fronting 
the street. The Rappite houses were ap- 
proached at the side but the large rooming 
houses had front doors. The walls of this 
tavern, however, are just as they were almost 
a century ago, and like many of the houses 
of its kind in our state, it is haunted by mem- 
ories of other days. The visitor here naturally 
turns to thinking over the Rapp and Owen 
times. Many noted persons from various parts 



172 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

of the world have stopped here: among the 
most celebrated of those in Owen times were 
Count Bernliard, Duke of Saxe Weimar, Max- 
imilian with his artist and taxidermist, James 
J. Audubon, and Sir Charles Lyell. These 
persons with the distinguished members of the 
Owen community, all appeal to the visitor's 
imagination, and he pictures the quaint scenes, 
the interesting people and most of all wonders 
at the delightful talk that must have been car- 
ried on where he sits at the beginning of a 
new century. 

The products of the Rappite household in- 
dustries also bear witness of sincere workman- 
ship. They made all manner of textiles. For 
the woolen goods they raised the finest Merino 
sheep ; for their linen they grew their own flax, 
and for their silk they cultivated their own silk- 
worms. They made the finest weaves and se- 
cured the loveliest hues from the use of mad- 
der combined with indigo, and samples that are 
still to be seen from a hundred years ago, rival 
the latest output of present commercial manu- 
'^acture. 

The question is often asked why the Rapp- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 173 

ites left such prosperity in Indiana. The an- 
swer is sometimes given that it was the object 
of George Rapp not to have his communities 
too prosperous. Another answer is that his 
success led him to seek a better location for his 
manufacturing and a better access to market. 
From the very beginning it was a part of the 
Rappite plan to have something new to work 
for and new conditions to conquer. Any way, 
the Harmonic estates in Indiana were sold by 
George Rapp to Robert Owen, of New Lan- 
ark, Scotland, in 1825. The extent of the sale 
may be gathered from a few of the items on the 
bill of sale, which can still be seen in the New 
Harmony library. Among other things, men- 
tion is made of: "20,000 acres of first-rate land, 
2,000 acres of highly cultivated land, 15 acres 
of vineyards, 35 apple orchards, peach orchards, 
sawmills, granaries, factory, and 700 sheep, be- 
sides a large number of other live stock." 

The Rappites had schools and churches to 
which happy children went when they first came 
to Indiana; but, alasl in time there were no 
more children in the community; the home was 
not perpetuated by them because they thoughf, 



m ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

the unmarried state was a surer means of salva- 
tion. As the outcome of this belief, the new- 
colony. Economy, which they started in Penn- 
sylvania after they left their beautiful Har- 
monic on the Wabash, gradually died out and 
all the glorious industrial achievements and the 
attempt at social betterment which they started 
in the New World became only a memory. 

No markers were placed over the graves of 
their dead ; each newly made grave was sodded 
over in the night in order that there might be 
perfect equality; but a book was kept showing 
a plat of the position of each grave in the 
cemetery. 

One little evidence of pathos at their de- 
parture from Harmonic is still to be seen in 
the Fretageot building made in Rappite times. 
Under the stairway is an inscription in chalk, 
*'In the twenty-fourth of May, 1824, we have 
departed. Lord, with thy great help and good- 
ness, in body and soul protect us." 

II 

After entering into the Rappite possessions 
and vast estates on the banks of the Wabash 



DNCE UPON !A. TIME IN INDIANA 175 

in 1825, Robert Owen changed the name of 
Harmonie, given by the Rappites, to New 
Harmony. Owen was one of the most advanced 
men of his generation. He was fifty-four years 
old when he came to Indiana to work out his 
social ideas. For twenty-five years before this 
time he had been in control of the mills at 'New 
Lanark, Scotland. Here he had risen from 
partner to owner, working his way from the 
very beginning and knowing every step in the 
management, and during his course he had 
thought out and put into practise plans for 
helping the workmen whose wages were stead- 
ily growing less because of the introduction of 
machinery. He also felt pity for the children 
of the workers and made provision for them and 
gave them the rudiments of education. So 
well did he succeed in helping his employees 
and their families that New Lanark became 
famous and visitors from all parts of the civ- 
ilized world came to visit Owen and his mills. 

Kobert Owen carried to New Harmony the 
social ideas that he had so successfully put into 
operation in Scotland. He started here the 
infant school of education, and this was twenty- 



170 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

one years before the days of the great father 
of the kindergarten, Froebel. Owen had in 
New Harmony the first school in this country 
for the free education of boys and girls in the 
same classes. He gathered about him the most 
noted group of people to be found in this or 
any country at the time, and it is largely due 
to those who went there that New Harmony 
became one of the first educational and scien- 
tific centers in the United States. 
^ Although Robert Owen, like George Rapp, 
started out wdth a common ownership in the 
property of the society, this basis for com- 
munity life lasted only two years, and Mr. 
Owen went back to Scotland, only coming 
again to New Harmony on visits. The short 
life of the community as a social experiment 
was accounted for by the fact that those who 
gathered there at the first were not only stran- 
gers to one another, but were unacquainted 
with the great ideas for which the movement 
stood. They had heard of the intention given 
out by Owen to form a new order of cooper- 
ative society and numbers flocked to New Har- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 177 

mony without knowing the work, the time and 
the devotion necessary to make the experiment 
a success. 

One of the great leaders in the Owen com- 
munity was William JNIaclure, a Scotchman of 
wealth and learning who was associated with 
Owen in the purchase of the New Harmony 
estates. JNIr. Maclure was also a geologist and 
a philanthropist who had before this time made 
himself known through his Observations on 
the Geology of tlie United States, in which 
was the first geological map of the country 
east of the Mississippi River. He was also 
president of the Academy of Science at Phil- 
adelphia, and when he decided to bring his 
school of science to New Harmony from Phil- 
adelphia he had a keel boat made for the pur- 
pose at Pittsburgh and named it The 
Philanthropist, but owing to the number of 
educated people on board it was afterward re- 
ferred to as The Boat Load of 'Knowledge, 
and its appearance at New Harmony was al- 
ways looked back upon as a great event in 
the life of the Owen community. There were. 



178 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANJ^ 

of course, many other noted people who did 
not come there on the Boat Load of Kno^wU 
edge, whose passengers sang on the way: 

"Land of the West, we come to thee. 
Far o'er the desert of the sea. 
Home of the brave, soil of the free — 
Huzza! she rises o'er the sea." 

William Maclure not only carried on the 
system of industrial and scientific education in 
the Owen school, but was the father of the trav- 
eling library in Indiana. He sent out books 
and the Disseminator^ a bi-monthly paper 
printed by the industrial school of the Owen 
community, and often exchanged them for the 
books the people had on hand. Many of his 
life plans for the interest of the working men 
were cut short, but by his will there were es- 
tablished one hundred and fifty libraries in In- 
diana and Illinois for working men. 

Mr. Maclure was assisted in his school by 
most able and noted educators in all branches 
of knowledge. There were among them pu- 
pils of the great Pestalozzi, and scholars from 
France. The sons of Robert Owen, trained 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 179 

in the best schools of Europe, were active work- 
ers in the community and three of them 
achieved distinction in the service they ren- 
dered this state and the country. Richard 
Owen was sometime professor in the State 
University, where one of the halls bears his 
name. He also had charge over the Confed- 
erate soldiers imprisoned at Camp Morton and 
by his kindness left such gratitude in their 
hearts that fifty years after they placed in the 
state house at Indianapolis Richard Owen's 
bust as a gift from the soldiers under him in 
1862. David Dale Owen was a most noted 
geologist and made the first United States 
government geological survey in most of the 
west central states, also collecting rare speci- 
mens. Another brother, Robert Dale Owen, 
writer, educator and statesman, has made In- 
diana his debtor for all time in education and 
lawmaking. In recognition of his services in 
forming juster laws for married women in 
Indiana the women of the state erected a bust 
in his honor on the state house grounds in In- 
dianapolis. Robert Owen's daughter, Jane 
Dale Owen, also came with her father to In- 



180 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

diana, and her daughter, Mrs. Constance 
Fauntleroy Runcie, was the founder of "The 
Minerva," the first woman's club in the United 
States. 

One of the noted women of the New Har- 
mony community days was Frances Wright. 
She had been educated in England by Jeremy 
Bentham and had traveled extensively in Eu- 
rope, and knew many of the most distinguished 
people over there, counting Lafayette among 
her personal friends. She held advanced views 
and had come to America to try an experiment 
at educating the slaves upon an estate which 
she bought for the purpose in Tennessee. She 
came to New Harmony during the Rappite 
days to study the work of that community, 
but, being in Philadelphia when the Maclure 
educators came, she was a passenger on the 
Boat Load of Knowledge. She was the first 
woman to lecture on the equality of woman 
before the law; later she helped in the editor- 
ship of the New Harmony Gazette and the 
Free Enquirer in New York with Robert Dale 
Owen. 

Perhaps the most beautiful of the old his- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 181 

toric homes in New Harmony is one that dates 
back through both the Owen and the Rappite 
life. It was built in 1821 and was then known 
as the Rapp mansion. In the Owen days it 
was owned and occupied by William Maclure. 
He used the south side for a part of his school 
and the upper floor for his dormitory. In one 
room the Disseminator was printed, and the 
spacious drawing-room, for the use of the pu- 
pils, contained rare paintings, engravings and 
articles of great value. This house was burned 
in 1844, but the brother of William Maclure, 
Alexander Maclure, rebuilt it. It was left to 
Mrs. Thomas Say in Maclure's will, but she 
never returned to occupy it. It was then 
bought by David Dale Owen and was occupied 
by members of the Owen family till in 1901, 
when it passed into the hands of the present 
owner, Mrs. John Corbin, who opens its doors 
to all comers who seek to know more of the 
early New Harmony spirit which lingers in 
the homes there. 

No account of New Harmony is complete 
without mention of the library with its twenty 
thousand volumes for a town of twelve hundred 



182 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

inhabitants. This library is a heritage from 
the Owen and JNIaclure spirit, and is one of the 
most valuable in Indiana. ]Much of its com- 
pleteness is owing to the generosity of Doctor 
Edward Murphy, who endowed it ; he also en- 
dowed a lecture course which enables the peo- 
ple of the town to-day to hear the best music 
and speaking in the country almost free of cost. 
Doctor Murphy further gave New Harmony 
a park which is a delight to the children of the 
town. 

Aside from achievements of the social exper- 
iment of New Harmony under Robert Owen 
and his group, brief as it then seemed, it still 
stands for distinctive things, among which are 
child training, free education, manual training, 
freedom in thought and religion, the equality 
of woman before the law and the necessity for 
recreation in the daily life. This last was pro- 
vided for in early times by weekly social gath- 
erings, by balls and other festivities in which 
many noted visitors took part. 

The influence of the Rapp industry and the 
Owen education has lived on in the town and 
the old-time hospitality is still experienced by 



DNCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 183 

visitors to New Harmony, this town which 
gave such distinction to the growth of Indiana, 
and which is more and more considered one 
of the great places of beginnings. 

When the one hundredth anniversary of the 
founding of New Harmony came round in 
1914, there was a wonderful revival of the old 
community spirit. It took six days to finish 
the celebration. The surviving relatives and 
members of the Rappite families at Economy, 
Pennsylvania, came. The people of the Owen- 
time descendants had a homecoming and took 
part in the exercises by contributing their tal- 
ents to the success of the festival where all were 
glad together. 

One of the most pleasing parts of the cele- 
bration was the School Children's Pageant on 
the last night, as a fitting ending to the week 
of enjojTnent. Though it was announced as a 
School Children's Pageant, it resolved itself 
into one for the whole town; for every one 
there helped and the three hundred children in 
the schools were reenforced by nine hundred 
citizens, the population of the place. Thus it 
>vas a pageant in the true sense of the word. 



184i ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

A high-school graduate made a very grand 
trumpeter; the assistant librarian spoke the 
prologue in perfect tone and expression. INIar- 
tin Golden, a retired actor of eighty years, 
called out the Rappite morning cry in a way 
that went home to every heart ; the dressmaker 
was the real pioneer mother and performed her 
part with a living reality; the village black- 
smith was the pioneer father ; the older people 
of New Harmony formed a chorus lending a 
background for each scene. The old commun- 
ity days were revived and showed in the scenes 
what had been tried in the wilderness there a 
hundred years before. Guests marveled that 
such a performance could be put on by so small 
a town, and it is to be doubted if any other 
place of the same size could have done what 
New Harmony did, all because it had the back- 
ground of great days and memories behind it. 
The children and the grown people mixed in 
the scenes in a natural way; the parts of the 
Revolutionary soldiers and British Red Coats 
were taken by adults entirely. The scene of 
the French Missionaries was presented by both 
children and adults, as were also the parts of 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 185 

the Indians. In the pioneer home the whole 
family took part. The coming of the Rappite 
families, the burning of the Rappite Book and 
the scene where Owen and Rapp met and con- 
cluded the sale of the Harmonic estates were 
very realistic and historic. The children had 
a double May-pole dance and showed the work- 
ings of the Owen school. The pageant closed 
with a minuet of the Owen time. The adults of 
New Harmony came out in the beautiful 
gowns a hundred years old, gowns that were 
taken from the old treasure chests and were 
now used without alteration. There were white 
satins, striped and plaid silks and all manner 
of picturesque shapes of bodice and skirt. Some 
of the home-comers took part in the dance, 
and the whole town rejoiced. 

No feature that the modern writers on pa- 
geantry pronounce necessary to this mode of 
dramatic performance was left out of the New 
Harmony pageant, and the celebration there 
shows how the work lives on, even though many 
of the plans of the founders failed. Indiana 
is proud of New Harmony, and New Har- 
mony takes a just pride in herself because she 



186 ONCE UPON X TIME IN INDIANA 

took time at the close of the first centennial 
anniversary of her founding to look through 
the purple mists of a hundred years and see the 
past in the light of the present. 

SONG SUNG AT THE CLOSE OF 
THE PAGEANT 

A Centennial Tribute 

Music by Mr. Fritz KruU 

Good Father Rapp and worthy band, from far 
across the sea, 

First made their home in Perm's fair land and 
thence in "Harmonic." 

Here primal forests dense were felled, and 
happy homes sprang up. 

And waving grain and garnered store till in- 
crease filled the cup. 

But prosperous life could not restrain from 
mem'ries of the place 

Where first they came to cast their lot witH 
Freedom's new-born race; 

So from their homes and fertile lands and gar- 
dens fair to see. 

They back to Pennland took their way, leav- 
ing dear "Harmonic." 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 18T 

CHORUS — 

Hail ! all hall ! to the fathers so true ! 

Their mem'ries we bless for what they dared 

^ do. 
Rich thanks do we bring, glad songs do we 

sing 
And rich homage pay, on this jubilant day. 
To the fathers so true, for w^hat they dared 

do. 
Outlasting a century just passed away! 
All honor to them on this jubilant day! 

From Scotia's realm the Owen group came to 
fair "Harmonic," 

Where Rappite homes and fertile lands and 
gardens fair to see 

All greeted them as fitting place to live their 
dreams so grand 

For bettering the human race in this great 
Western land. 

[Large souls who came from ev'ry part to learn 
the Master's thought 

Here from him gained his ideas new, and in- 
spiration caught. 

To Robert Owen and his band our debt is vast 
to-day 

True pioneers in progress they to reach a bet- 
ter way. 



188 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 
CHORUS — 

From Harmonie her founders wise have long 

since passed away ; 
But they have left a shining light in which we 

walk to-day, 
Who meet to mark a hundred years since here 

they first began 
.Their noble effort to uplift the entire life of 

man. 
[Sacred this spot to every soul that sees with 

forward look 
And values all the good there is in life as well 

as book. 
Thrice sacred spot! to those who read the 

meaning clear and true 
Of knowledge, love and will in man, that works 

the power to do ! 

CHORUS — 



CHOOSING THE SITE FOR THE 
PRESENT CAPITAL— INDI- 
ANAPOLIS 




PRESENT STATE CAPITOL AT INDIAXAPOLIS 



Jonathan Jennings^ first Governor of In- 
diana, had been in office four years when the 
legislature under him in 1816 appointed a 
commission of ten men from ten counties to 
select a site for a more centrally located capi- 
tal of the state. This site was to be upon the 
unsold land owned by the United States and 
was to include four sections, afterward called 
*'the donation." The commissioners were in- 
structed to meet at an appointed time at Con- 
ner's Prairie, on White River, below Nobles- 

191 



19^ ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

ville, and, after due form, proceed "to view, 
select and locate a site that was eligible and 
advantageous for a permanent seat of govern- 
ment in Indiana." 

The old settlement, Vincennes, had naturally- 
been made the first capital of Indiana Terri- 
tory. Here the American flag had been first 
permanently raised over the Northwest Terri- 
tory ; here Clark, Gibault and Vigo, with their 
loyal men, had worked unselfishly for the good 
of the country in the West, as the forces in the 
East were doing at the same time. But Vin- 
cennes was on the western border and the dis- 
tance was too great for the people in the east- 
ern and southeastern part of the territory to 
come to the seat of government, so in 1813 it 
was moved to Corydon, where it remained ter- 
ritorial capital till 1816 and state capital till 
1820. [But Corydon, like Vincennes, was not 
to hold the high honor of having the seat of 
government. Though Corydon had been the 
center of population for some time, because 
most of the incoming settlers had made their 
homes along the Ohio, the Wabash and the 
White Water Valley; when the "New Pur- 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 193 

chase," ceded by the Delaware Indians in 1818, 
was thrown open for settlement, emigration to 
this region set in and the center of population 
began to move northward to a new site which 
was at the time the geographical center and 
would soon be the center of population, and 
strange to say it was within one mile of the 
center by measurement east and west. The 
projection of the National Road was then in 
the minds of eastern people. 

The people in the southern part of the state 
greatly protested against the removal of the 
capital northward, and many of the towns 
came forward with offers of advantages for 
their claim to it. Salem was particularly anx- 
ious to secure it, and Madison offered one 
thousand dollars for its removal there, but that 
was not to be. 

The commission appointed for the selection 
of the site was made up of men of recognized 
ability, anxious to serve the state. Governor 
Jennings, though not a member of the com- 
mission, went with the party some distance 
and showed a lively interest in their work. He 
was a man of force and a great champion of 



194f ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

anti-slavery. Indiana will always owe him a 
debt for establishing in her borders the prin- 
ciples of freedom as set forth in the great Or- 
dinance of 1787. One of his opponents said 
of Governor Jennings: "Wherever Jennings 
goes, he draws all men to him." We wish we 
had time to tell you more of the first governor 
of our state, and of the beautiful Anna Hays 
who became his wife. 

John Tipton was one of the most distin- 
guished members of the commission. He had 
made his record as a soldier under Harrison 
in 1811 ; he was large-minded and generous in 
his donations to the state, giving to Indiana 
the battle-ground of Tippecanoe. His name 
is written all over the state and his services 
in Indian affairs are invaluable. He also 
served Indiana with distinction in the United 
States Senate. While on the commission to 
select the site he had the wisdom to keep a 
journal, and but for this oiu* knowledge of the 
working of that body would be indeed scant. 
Luckily for us now, the journal has been saved 
and can be consulted in the Indiana Magazine 
of History, Ills journal tells us that he and 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 195 

Governor Jennings started from Corydon on 
May 17th, 1820, taking with them a black serv- 
ant boy; they also took plenty of bacon and 
coiFee. He speaks of buying paper and pow- 
der, which indicated that he meant to write 
and hunt, both of which he did, as his jour- 
nal gives evidence of writing and his reference 
to killing a deer, evidence of hunting. He re- 
cords that they missed the way and had to go 
back ; speaks of boiling coffee beside a muddy 
stream; of finding a tree upon which he had 
carved his name seven years before in June, 
1813. He says, "We traveled fast;" were 
joined at Vallonia by two other commission- 
ers, Colonel Durham of Jackson County and 
Bartholomew of Clark, besides two unofficial 
persons. He mentions the * 'Ripple" where 
he refreshed himself and changed his suit 
and, we infer, got ready for the final meet- 
ing. The personal touches in his journal 
reveal the same spirit that his comrades regard 
him with in their statements. He refers 
to enjoying the hospitality at the home of 
a friend, and when he stayed in an Indian 
town he says: "Times are altered. When I 



196 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

was there I was hunting the Indians with 
whom we now eat and drink. . . . They 
have sold their land for a trifle and are pre- 
paring to leave the country where they have 
laid their fathers and relatives, (the country) 
in which we are hunting for a site for the seat 
of the government of our state." These re- 
marks surely show that Tipton had both im- 
agination and sympathy. While his journal 
applies mainly to his party, we may believe 
that the other groups on their way to the same 
place also enjoyed themselves. It is really 
wonderful to think that commissioners ap- 
pointed to locate a state capital should have 
to thread their way through dense woods, to 
cross swamps, ford streams, tent at night, 
bring down their game and travel over the old 
Indian trails for a road. But this they did, 
and at the appointed time all except William 
Prince, who could not come, met at Conner's 
Prairie. Tipton describes Conner's Prairie as 
consisting of about one hundred and fifty acres 
of White River bottom land and a number of 
Indian huts near the house. This trading post 
was known far and wide for its hospitality and 



ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 197 

for its supply of needed goods which were car- 
ried by pack-horse all the way from Conners- 
ville, named for his brother, John Conner, a 
member of the commission and one of the earli- 
est settlers, if not the first one, to come to 
Fayette County. The other sites to be "viewed" 
besides Conner's Prairie were the Fall Creek 
settlement where John McCormick had come 
shortly before and made his home on the bank 
of White River near where Fall Creek flows 
into it, and The Bluffs about twenty miles 
down the river, where the town of Waverly 
now stands. This was then known as the 
Whetzel Settlement, named for Jacob Whet- 
zel, who came out here when he made the won- 
derful trace that bears his name and who de- 
cided to make his home on the spot. These 
three prospective sites were evidently visited 
several times by the commissioners, both in a 
body and in separate groups, and it is probable 
that the different ones gave dissent to propo- 
sitions differing in opinion of their favorite 
site. But if this were the case they were able 
(to meet at McCormick's cabin and agree upon 
the Fall Creek Settlement as a site for the 



198 DNCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 

future capital of Indiana. Some of the com- 
missioners argued that White River would 
some day be navigable. The story that ap- 
pears in so many histories about the vote of 
four to five in favor of McCormick's is now 
denied for want of documentary evidence. 
After the decision was made there was a delay 
caused by unfinished work of the surveyor, but 
this was done, and the commission reported 
favorably upon the Fall Creek Settlement to 
the legislature on January 6th, 1821. The re- 
port was accepted the same day and a new com- 
mission was appointed to lay out the new cap- 
ital and give it a name. 

Mrs. Levering says in her book. Historic 
Indiana^ **The site selected was a heavily 
wooded miasmatic wilderness, sixty miles from 
nearest civilization, and most inconvenient in- 
land. . . . Indian trails were the only paths 
to the place and there were no accommodations 
upon arrival." 

The next year the county of Marion includ- 
ing the new site was organized and Alexander 
Ralston, an able Scotchman who had assisted 
in the work of surveying the city of Washing- 



DNCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 199 

ton, aided in laying out the new capital of 
Indiana. It was given the characteristics of 
Washington City in having the central circle 
from which radiate the diagonals to the bounds 
first given the city, but which have long since 
been outgrown. 

In order to realize this picture, and think 
back a hundred years, when the fierce Miamis 
were to the north, you will have to forget for 
the moment our present prosperous capital 
with its towering monument, its throng of in- 
habitants and its free public schools to which 
over thirty thousand children go daily to be 
taught citizenship. You will also have to for- 
get the railroads and interurbans that branch 
out in all directions from this city as a center, 
like so many spokes in a wheel, connecting it 
with Lake Michigan and the Ohio River north 
and south and with the great trunk lines east 
and west, joining the Atlantic and Pacific sea- 
boards, till it is now the greatest commercial 
inland city in the United States, and this has 
Keen done in a hundred years. 

Although there was much rejoicing over the 
iJecision in favor of the Fall Creek Settlement 



200 ONCE UPON :a; time in Indiana 

for the site of the future capital, the people 
had to wait four years before the seat of gov- 
ernment was really here. In 1824 the treasury 
and the state papers were moved to Indianap- 
olis. It took four four-horse wagons to con- 
vey them and the families of the officers over 
rough ways and wooded roads where trees 
often had to be cut to make way for the pas- 
sage. Samuel Merrill was state treasurer then; 
he has many descendants who have written 
very interestingly upon the removal of the cap- 
ital from Corydon to Indianapolis. 

The name of the new capital was a matter 
of great interest to those concerned in it then. 
The names of "Tecumseh" and "Sumarrah" 
were proposed, but they did not find favor. 
Other recommendations were made, but the 
honor belongs to General Jeremiah Sullivan, 
of Madison, who named it Indianapolis.. 



THE END! 



